BAGUIO, PHILIPPINES — Culture Couture takes off in the launch of Bayo’s newest collection. Bayo Foundation, with the Baguio HARVEST CommUNITY Hub, recently presented a fashion forward, 30-piece off the rack selection, making the dream to have a farm to fashion industry on its way to reality.
Bayo Co-CEO and the Bayo Foundation’s Executive Director Anna Lagon emphasized the thrust of HARVEST is not only to extract quality products but also to provide benefits for the supported communities.
“These are the weavers and we also connect and provide the pathway for them to become sustainable through our programs, workshops capacity building activities at the hub – these are transformational ways so that the skills can be developed further,” Anna said.
Soft pastel hues hand crafted by a team of weavers mixed with cotton completed the off the rack collection presented at the fashion launch on November 19, at the Baguio Botanical Garden, as part of the 5th Ibag iw Festival in celebration of Baguio’s declaration as a UNESCO Creative City.
CommUNITY Backing Created the Hub
Senator Nancy Binay graced the HARVEST fashion show in support of local sustainable industries, vowing to replicate the Hub all over the Philippines. She shared plans for the Baguio HARVEST Hub to be the basis for other iterations across the country to protect local industries from extinction, lauding the efforts to keep the weaving industry alive as well as give livelihood to communities in the city.
Today, the weaving industry has lost its luster for the youth, leaving elders with no one to pass on the age-old craft to. This adds even more to the goal of the Hub to bring economic gains back to the industry and encourage the coming generations to continue the legacy of weaving to become sustainable and profitable.
The building of the HARVEST Hub is a collaboration with the Baguio city government, helmed by Baguio City Mayor Benjamin Magalong who allowed the use of the space at the Botanical Garden and to utilize reclaimed wood from fallen pine trees to build the façade. A commercial paint company likewise pitched in support with air-purifying paints used by local artist, Venazir Martinez, for wall murals inside the collaborative space.
Baguio HARVEST CommUNITY Hub stands for “Heritage and Artisanship Reimagined as a Vehicle for Economic Growth, Sustainability, and Technology” with an emphasis on “UNITY” connoting a place to connect through craft, in sync with Bayo’s own #JourneytoZero mission towards circular fashion espoused in the Hub.
Anna Lagon backtracked on childhood memories identifying crocheted items to the city of Pines and acknowledged the highland town as a place for highly skilled community of weavers: “We are here to pinpoint what else we can do for the community. It only shows that partnerships work well if we choose principled partners, this is also a very important tradition of weaving but also the crochet weavers of Baguio, maybe we can find ways to bring that back and not assume that these are imported.”
Bayo Foundation strives to improve the materials with threads using Philippine cotton and now reaching toward using Ilocos threads which will also be channeled to the Baguio HARVEST Hub.
Promising Sericulture Project, Championing Local
Marie Venus Tan, Bayo Board of Director, revealed a sericulture project is underway for the Hub which envisions to source out silk from Barangay Cuba, Kapangan, a town in the Benguet province to make the project a truly sustainable endeavor.
In 2021, Bayo committed to buy the fresh cocoons at the appropriate price, which they will process into silk and into fabric.
Anna said: “Bayo foundation has been continuing its commitment to revive sericulture. We have been progressing and I feel it is safe to state that it’s been thriving. We have regular harvests of silk cocoons and as I type this message, we have a scheduled harvest today in Kapangan.”
The town is reviving its silk production with the assistance of the Department of Science and Technology and the private sector to jumpstart the production of local silk in the Cordilleras.
Venus, who is former chief operating officer of the Philippines Tourism Promotions Board and Regional Director of the Department of Tourism Cordillera, said the sericulture project with Kapangan was a long-time plan and is happy that it is now seeing its realization with HARVEST.
Cordilleran Harvic Dominguez was part of a fusion of Filipino design houses with Zarah Juan, Vin Orias and Valdes Designs incorporating traditional hand-woven fabric created by the hub’s local hand weavers from Baguio City to complete the first HARVEST dubbed as “Culture Couture.”
Harvic defined Culture Couture as contemporary designs using Cordilleran weaves with new patterns expertly done by the local team of community weavers from the city: “The patterns we used had symbols which are endemic to the Cordillera, these are designed to be off the rack pieces which can be used for the everyday,” explained Harvic, who has made the tradition and culture of the highlands closer to the mainstream markets.
The fashion launch has made the Baguio HARVEST CommUNITY Hub a champion for Cordilleran culture, heritage and tradition through sustainable fashion.
