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Thinking Global
Philippines as a Fashion Capital
By Dr. Bernardo M. Villegas
INQUIRER.net
As the Filipino middle class expands more rapidly in the coming years, one of the sunrise industries catering to the domestic market is fashion. Filipino fashion designers and fashion companies will have a reasonable chance to compete with the foreign brands that are increasingly appealing to the large youth market. Having been nurtured in a multicultural society, Filipino fashion designers are among the most creative in Asia and can actually influence fashion trends in the whole of the Asia-Pacific region. There is an opportunity for such cities as Manila and Cebu to follow the examples of fashion capitals in Europe like Paris, Milan, Madrid and Barcelona. Leadership in fashion, however, will not be handed to the Philippines on a silver platter. Another strong contender for fashion leadership is Jakarta where the fashion industry faces an even larger domestic market of 250 million consumers.
In my frequent trips to Jakarta, I have been impressed with efforts of the Indonesian fashion designers to set trends that go against practices in the Western world of fabricating clothes for women that show too much of the female body, provoking the easily aroused males to look at women as sex objects. Thanks to the modesty inherent in the Islamic culture, Indonesian women can be extremely fashionable and highlight the beauty of the body without overexposing the skin. In fact, such fashion trends greatly benefit the textile industry because modesty in dressing leads to a much greater quantitative use of clothing materials.
In Indonesia, there are no Madonnas, Britney Spears, Christina Aguilera or Jennifer Lopez who seem to think that they can improve their singing talents by showing more skin than material in some of their performances. Unfortunately, these singing idols set fashion trends among young girls in the West. As I tried to follow the fortunes of Jessica Sanchez in
Philippines as a Fashion Capital
By Dr. Bernardo M. Villegas
INQUIRER.net
As the Filipino middle class expands more rapidly in the coming years, one of the sunrise industries catering to the domestic market is fashion. Filipino fashion designers and fashion companies will have a reasonable chance to compete with the foreign brands that are increasingly appealing to the large youth market. Having been nurtured in a multicultural society, Filipino fashion designers are among the most creative in Asia and can actually influence fashion trends in the whole of the Asia-Pacific region. There is an opportunity for such cities as Manila and Cebu to follow the examples of fashion capitals in Europe like Paris, Milan, Madrid and Barcelona. Leadership in fashion, however, will not be handed to the Philippines on a silver platter. Another strong contender for fashion leadership is Jakarta where the fashion industry faces an even larger domestic market of 250 million consumers.
In my frequent trips to Jakarta, I have been impressed with efforts of the Indonesian fashion designers to set trends that go against practices in the Western world of fabricating clothes for women that show too much of the female body, provoking the easily aroused males to look at women as sex objects. Thanks to the modesty inherent in the Islamic culture, Indonesian women can be extremely fashionable and highlight the beauty of the body without overexposing the skin. In fact, such fashion trends greatly benefit the textile industry because modesty in dressing leads to a much greater quantitative use of clothing materials.
In Indonesia, there are no Madonnas, Britney Spears, Christina Aguilera or Jennifer Lopez who seem to think that they can improve their singing talents by showing more skin than material in some of their performances. Unfortunately, these singing idols set fashion trends among young girls in the West. As I tried to follow the fortunes of Jessica Sanchez in
References: KLEIN, Maria. “New Branded World.” No Logo. NY: Picador, 1999 EDWARDS, Tim. “Consuming Passions – Fashion and Consumer Society” of Consumption. Buckingham: Open University Press, 2000 New study: What you wear could affect how well you work * Grindereng, Margaret P. "Fashion Diffusion." Journal of Home Economics, 59 (March 1967), 171-174. * King, Charles W. "Fashion Adoption: A Rebuttal to the 'Trickle Down ' Theory." In Stephen A. Greyser, editor, Toward Scientific Marketing, Chicago. American Marketing Association, 1963, 108-125. * King, Charles W., and L.J. Ring "Retail Fashion Segmentation Research: Development and Implementation." In Bent Stidsen, editor, Marketing in the 1970 's and Beyond, Edmonton, Canada. Canadian Association of Administrative Sciences, 1975. * Reynolds, Fred D., and Williams R. Darden. "Why the Midi Failed." Journal of Advertising Research, 12 (August 1972), 39-44. * Summers, John O. "The Identity of Women 's Clothing Fashion Opinion Leaders." Journal of Marketing Research, 7 (May 1970), 178-185.