Designer Profile

■Bench Design Team.
As the Philippines’ leading clothing and lifestyle brand, Bench has always managed to keep its finger on the pulse of all things current. As a brand that prides itself in crafting, promoting, and loving local, BENCH celebrated Filipino artistry and industry earlier this year with Bench Fashion Week – a three-day showcase of the latest collections from some of the country’s most recognized brands and designers. It was also during this Bench Fashion Week that the brand launched its first ever Bench Design Awards, an initiative meant to put the spotlight on undiscovered local talent. It was an open call for designers nationwide, 10 of whom were selected through a rigorous screening process to present their own collections at the second installment of Bench Fashion Week. The winners of the Bench Design Awards get the chance to join Bench and present their works in the upcoming Asian Fashion Meets Tokyo show at Amazon Fashion Week Tokyo.

■Jayson Aguilar Glarino
Jaggy Glarino is a Filipino avant-garde fashion designer who is celebrated for his intuitive design approach, bold color choices, and his brave multi-dimensional take on garment construction. A fashion school drop-out, Jaggy, who is "self-taught", built his young fashion career through YouTube tutorials, ready-made pattern stencils, and by unraveling interesting pieces of garments which he finds from thrift stores. His unstructured, non-theoretical, trial-and-error kind of early design upbringing perhaps contributed to his daring style, which is a tenacious leap from the usual way of dressing Filipinos are accustomed to; an aesthetic which uniquely lingers in between what is wearable and an eccentric art form.
Through his non-conformist approach, Jaggy won the Lulu Tan-Gan Knitwear Award a few years ago, allowing him to earn a short-course scholarship at the Central Saint Martins in London, UK. He was also handpicked by the esteemed New York-based fashion designer Josie Natori to take part in the International Fashion Showcase.

■Jennifer Anne Contreras
Jenni Contreras graduated with a bachelor’s degree in Fashion Design and Merchandising from De La Salle - College of Saint Benilde in 2014. Just a month after graduating, she assumed the roles of creative director and head designer for women's ready-to-wear brand ARIN. After presenting 5 collections for the said brand at Manila Fashion Festival, she took a short break from fashion design and worked as a graphic designer and style editor for DUO Magazine. Her background as a graphic designer is also apparent in her works.
Even as a student, Jenni had always been heavily influenced by the renaissance era. Her winning collection for the Bench Design Awards, Problem Child, is proof of this. The collection is also the first that she has released under her name and entirely independent of a brand. It was inspired by the photographs of Romina Ressia and the viral memes of Cecilia Azcarate and Fly Art.

■RJ Santos
RJ Santos, the creative genius behind Randolf Clothing, intentionally misspells his name to distinguish the clothing label from the Randolph, Jr. that appears on his official documents. By recasting himself through this seemingly simple gesture, Santos grants both his label and his clothing with a relaxed air that is fun and whimsical without the usual cues associated with fun and whimsy.
What Santos assembles instead through Randolf is a series of looks that is youthful but not solely meant for young bodies. Heavily referencing pop culture, Santos draws from that limited space between the trendy, the iconic, and the absurd. As an illustrator, he creates all of his own prints to come up with collections that can accommodate (mock) statement t-shirts just as easily as elaborate gowns. By breaking the design process down to matters of color, print, and silhouette, Randolf shows how clothing should do more than cover the body or accentuate what is typically prized, like curves, thinness, and height. By departing from such prescriptions of conventional beauty, Randolf highlights the best parts of one’s personality – a sense of humor, a grasp of irony, and the capacity not to give a f***.

Brand Profile

■BENCH
Designer : Bench Design Team.

■JAGGY GLARINO
Designer : Jayson Aguilar Glarino

■JENNI CONTRERAS
Designer : Jennifer Anne Contreras

■RANDOLF
Designer : RJ Santos

Category

Men’s & Women’s / Ready To Wear