EXCLUSIVE: Rajo Laurel Defined Filipino Couture In Bangkok
To present original Filipino work on foreign ground is never a neutral act. It asks whose hands are being seen, whose labor is being read, and whether the work can stand without translation. In Bangkok, Rajo Laurel answered that question directly.
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Staged in partnership with the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) through the Philippine Creative Industries Development Council (PCIDC), Malikhaing Pinoy: LAHI brought Filipino couture into an international setting without softening its origins. The 33-piece collection carried the work of many regions and many makers—Arnel Papa, Celestina Maristela Ocampo, Cholo Ayuyao, Monchét Diokno Olives, and MX Studios by Maxine Santos Tuaño—contributing to a body of work that insisted on authorship as collective.
The Work of Defining Ourselves
The show was not an exercise in scale or excess, but characterization. “I wanted to define who the Filipino is today,” the Filipino designer said. That question guided every decision, beginning with material: straw, hemp, buri, sea grass, abaca. Materials are tied to function, repetition, and endurance rather than luxury. “From the humblest of materials we can create masterpieces,” Laurel said, treating transformation as something earned.
What made that discipline clear were the garments themselves. “Mestiza” reworked the palma and camisa/blusa through jusi from Iloilo, raw silk, and abaca from Abra, finished with silk blooms by Cholo Ayuyao. “Kadayawan” paired a hand-woven straw bodice from Sorsogon with culottes in rayon and silk woven in Ilocos. In “Datu”, T’boli references surfaced through paper silk, the malong, and accents from Benguet and Dumaguete. “Paradiso”, created with Arnel Papa, is a dress made with Palawan pearls, capiz, and raffia.
Laurel described the collection as a mirror. One meant to force recognition rather than admiration. “I wanted to place a mirror in front of ourselves,” he said. “Ponder on this reflection. Realise that we matter.”
Craft Leaves Home
Showing in Bangkok sharpened that intent. The collection did not involve the eye, again, for approval, again. It placed Filipino craft alongside other global practices and allowed it to hold its ground through rigor alone. “The Filipino creative has a space in the global stage,” Laurel said, stating it as a condition that already exists, not one still to be earned.
Presenting the work on foreign ground visibility changes perception. An international audience encounters Filipino craftsmanship not as reference or export, but as finished work—something to be read, discussed, and measured in real time. In that setting, craft becomes legible as industry, and local making enters a wider economy of ideas, exchange, and opportunity.
The strength of LAHI lies in the ability not to over-explain its intentions or soften its positions. It trusted the work to carry meaning on its own terms. When the smoke cleared, what remained was not just the memory of garments, but a recalibration of value. LAHI did not ask the world to look harder. It asked Filipinos to look more closely first.
Photos courtesy of VISIONS PR
The post EXCLUSIVE: Rajo Laurel Defined Filipino Couture In Bangkok first appeared on MEGA.
EXCLUSIVE: Rajo Laurel Defined Filipino Couture In Bangkok
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