In a previous article in Manila Bulletin, I wrote that the eyes of lifestyle arbiter Chito Vijandre, along with those of his longtime creative and life partner Ricky Toledo, “are a window to the world in all its magnificence and splendor, through eras and epochs.”
The collection he unveiled recently at Bench Fashion Week (BFW) 2024, something Chito only does on very, very rare occasions now that he and Ricky are busy with other creative things, such as their lifestyle concept store Firma, proved to be another feather on his maximalist’s cap—a three-suite collection, ironically titled “The Dawn of a New Age,” featuring retro futurism, the Age of Aquarius, and disco glam. It was a kaleidoscope of a dream, which brought back to the present, in a span of 20 minutes or less, all the swinging of the ’60s and the disco-dancing of the ’70s, the decades on whose inspiration he put the collection together.
Trust only Chito to do maximalism right. As an aesthetic, we know, of course, it’s not just about piling everything up and mixing everything together. I’ve always maintained that restraint is a great measure of creativity, and it’s true even for all of Chito’s fantasy-level maximalism, even as at the start of his presentation at BFW, he said, “In a show, nothing hinders creativity.” His work, for all the frills parading in in-your-face colors, is a masterstroke of restraint, geometric, swirling, popping, mind-altering, consciousness-expanding, hallucinogenic, psychedelic, like a good trip! “Maximalism is an art form you cannot abuse,” he once told me. “It’s hard to pull off, you need proper editing in your mix of textures, colors, and periods. I brand myself as a maximalist because I like rising to this challenge.”
More than proper editing, in my book, what makes it work for Chito is his personal experience of the breadth and length, the highs and lows, the east, west, north, and south of world culture, all these things to which he has exposed his maximalist soul through his eyes wide open to the manifold sizes, shapes, colors, textures, variegations, vicissitudes, swirls and drifts and rolls, and rising and falling (such as of bangs, skirt hems, or empires) of all that is overwhelmingly or even strangely beautiful in life.
Chito’s BFW high-concept collection made spirits rise, hips sway, toes tap, jaws drop, eyes widen, and hearts beat faster at the first instant, as lights dimmed and went back on to begin the show. The mood, already unmistakable the first second, flashed like lightning, bouncing off an excess of mirror balls. The music was wild, heralding the first suite, Retro Futurism, with the 1978 chart-topper “Souvenirs” by the French disco group Voyage, which became a particular staple and smash hit in the Philippines, the second, The Age of Aquarius, with “Aquarius/Let the Sunshine In (The Flesh Failures),” a medley of two songs from the 1967 musical Hair, which the American R&B group the 5th Dimension released as a single the same year, and the third, Disco Glam, with “Annie Batungbakal” by ’70s crazy-popular band Hotdog. On our benches, moved by the beat, we all were transported back to the dancefloors or ledges of our youth.
In “The Dawn of the New Age,” hippie met folksy met bold met dainty met flashy met mini met flowy, strapped on chain mail, shimmering with metal discs, blinding sequins, eyepopping crystals, sparkling fringes, metallics galore! Onto the ramp of Chito’s dreamed future, Space Age maidens, Medieval romantic gypsies, Barbarella remakes, and post-Annie Batungbakal disco-going moderns waltzed back in, either clad in silk jersey minis styled with pinafores or silk chiffons paired with Tibetan brocades and Mughal prints, or dresses narrow at the shoulders and wide at the hem reminiscent of the folk costumes of Serge Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes or Sally Lippman owning the Studio 54 dancefloor in a trapeze dress. It was all a dance of beads, crochet, pailettes, Varanasi silks, bejeweled mesh, bell-sleeve blouses, bell bottoms, sex, drugs, and rock and roll.
To me, just as the collection was hypnotic like psychedelic swirls, its title, “The Dawn of a New Age,” was ironically nostalgic, perhaps even satirical, maybe a lament or a wish. The jab, if I were to imagine it as a social commentary, was in the models, who made me realize how self-edited we all have become in this culture of smartphones. They could have danced with wilder abandon, they could have shimmy-shimmied until they dropped dead on the floor, like we used to do. But then, to them, there was the matter of what would be all over social media tomorrow. Alas, they were too young to usher in the new “Age of Aquarius,” the astrological gibberish that set off the ’60s and the ’70s, Chito’s inspiration for this collection, which ached, like I did, for the freedom we once wore on our sleeves, on our feet, in our hair.