Honoring a fashion matriarch

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One exhibit follows 4 generations of designers in one family

LOVE OF ALL FORMS was present at the opening of the Love Marina exhibit at SM Aura on Sept. 10.

The wedding gowns of society brides like Ana Sobrepena, Lisa Ongpin Periquet, Nita Llamas (grandmother of designer Monique Lhullier), Alice Paez-Lorenzo, Rica Lorenzo, Silvina Clemente-Sevilla, Marissa Hernandez-Yu, and Timmy Roa-Antonio, all made by late fashion designer Marina Antonio were on display, symbolizing love celebrated and preserved through the ages.

Meanwhile, the love for friends and family shone through Ms. Antonio’s family, who organized the exhibit for their grandmother. Family members and old family friends converged to show their love for her legacy and the country: Vicky Veloso Barrera announced that her grandmother, through the Zonta Club, has been nominated as a National Artist.

SHARED VALUES
The honor is not foreign to the family: Ms. Antonio herself was married to National Artist for Architecture Pablo Antonio, whose edifices still dot the country. In fact, one of the dresses on exhibit, the one worn by Mrs. Paez-Lorenzo (the wife of basketball player and corporate executive Luis “Moro” Lorenzo, and matriarch of the Lorenzo family and their group of companies), was a collaboration between the spouses. The gown boasts of a trellis held down by pearls. The trellis’ gridwork’s precision is owed to Mr. Antonio’s draughtsmen.

The dress also has the distinction of having been worn three times by different Paez brides. “It just shows that she strove to make each gown as beautiful as possible. So much so that the daughters, the granddaughters, the nieces, want to wear them also,” said Ms. Veloso-Barrera. Mrs. Paez-Lorenzo’s gown isn’t the only one repeated by various brides through their family line, and it’s a nod towards the quality of Ms. Antonio’s gowns that they could be worn more than 20 years after they were made.

Ms. Veloso-Barrera also outlined the qualities that her grandparents shared: “They were very meticulous in their attention to detail. They did not want shortcuts. They did whatever was necessary to complete the job, and to do it well.” She remembers her grandfather arriving in the middle of the night at job sites for impromptu inspections, while her grandmother would stay up at similarly late hours to finish dresses.

Ms. Antonio, born in the early 1900s, started her career in design in the 1930s, working all the way up to the 1990s. In that span of time, many fashion designers have since made their mark, and have been honored: her contemporaries include Ramon Valera and Salvacion “Slim” Lim Higgins, both conferred the National Artist title.

Ms. Veloso-Barrera talked to BusinessWorld about her grandmother’s nomination for National Artist: “I think she deserves it. You know what, if she doesn’t get it, she is still the National Artist Lola of my heart.”

SPECIAL CLIENTS
Her late grandmother was no ordinary society woman who just happened to make clothes: she was handpicked by women belonging to families who would change history. There’s Nini Quezon Avancena, leading the pack of daughters and wives of the most powerful men of the nation; then there’s Clare Booth Luce, Pat Nixon, and even Jean MacArthur (General Douglas MacArthur’s wife).

Ms. Barrera explained why those particular women were drawn to her grandmother, despite the wealth of choices in postwar Manila: “These were the women who liked a classic, feminine, dainty line. There were certain women who are very sophisticated, and you want the drama, so you would go to Slim’s, you would go to Valera. But those who wanted soft, feminine, classic, dainty, figure-friendly, would go to Marina.”

ALL IN THE FAMILY
Throughout her long lifetime, Ms. Antonio bore witness to four generations of creatives in her family: this would include her daughter, Malu Veloso, also a designer favored by society, granddaughters Vicky and Violeta (“Letlet”), who followed in the same business and with comparable success (the sisters designed the wedding gown of “Megastar” Sharon Cuneta when she married politician Francis Pangilinan); not to mention all the architects and artists among the family. The present generation includes Ms. Veloso-Barrera’s children: Hannah, training to be a fashion designer at De La Salle-College of Saint Benilde, and artist Joshua Carlos Barrera, both of whose works are on display.

We asked Ms. Veloso-Barrera if the names in her family ever weighed over them, throughout their own careers. She answered with a story about her son, putting up a show in one of the city’s art galleries, moving about without his family’s names. Upon discovery of his illustrious relations, he was asked how it felt to “walk in their shadow.” He answered, “I don’t feel like I walk in their shadow. I walk in their light.”

“I’m proud of it. I’m proud of the heritage, the legacy, and everything I’ve loved, and that’s why I want to share it with the world,” said Ms. Veloso-Barrera.

With creative talent flowing through the veins of four generations, one has to wonder if talent is indeed hereditary. “I think it is,” said Ms. Veloso-Barrera. “My daughter was six years old when her great-grandmother died. Where did she get this passion?

“It has to be somewhere in the genes, and at the same time, it is the example that you set.”

The Love Marina exhibit is on view until Sept. 24 at level 3 of SM Aura, BGC, Taguig. — Joseph L. Garcia