Little Fish, Big City

Little Fish, Big City presents humanity in its densest form: as little fish swimming with the everyday current of modern, urban life. The collection is a reflection of the collective experience of living in a congested, big, city, where we are small fish amongst many. Our individual lives become small as we’re faced with the humanity around us that converges as we commute around the big city. The collection focuses on how people, as part of nature, break through the architectural and systemic matrix of the city. The collection is about travel on the large scale of human migration and feeling like a fish out of water, to the small scale of our daily commute. Traveling is the past, present, and future of the human experience.

Growing up in the heart of Metro Manila, I’ve observed the congestion, rush, and inequities in the big city. In Metro Manila where the government has failed to provide adequate public transportation, people have filled in the gaps with Jeepneys and Tricycles. The Jeepneys, constructed from Jeeps left by WW2-era Americans, are the perfect representation of Filipino ingenuity and recycling. Jeepneys are always beautifully decorated, colorful, driver-owned, and a pillar of the country’s transportation system. The Jeepney also represents what it means to be part of a community in the big city, its not about the notion of “take up space,”—instead about how we can make ourselves small so we can all squeeze into the Jeepney and get to our destination. The collection aims to emulate the Jeepney and makes the case for natural fabrics and color in urban technical wear.

The collection is guided by the goal of creating commuter-centered solutions to clothing, such as anti-theft pockets, anti-smog outerwear, and bike-able skirts. To me, sustainability is clothing that adapts to our needs by being multi-functional and modular. In order to achieve this goal, I used digital software to create designs that transform to provide commuter solutions. As a designer, I rarely sketch my ideas, instead designing directly on CLO. The functionality, transformability, and flat patterns ultimately inform the design. I’m interested in flat patterns as maps of the city and attempted to make garments out of one, continuous piece of fabric. Using CLO allows me to zoom out on the pattern and imagine how edges can merge together to omit seams, or how similar-shaped pattern pieces can serve the same purpose.

The collection is about a deep appreciation for natural fabric and it’s properties, which manifested in drawn thread work and woven linen jersey. An interest in the shape of the flat pattern and attempting to create garments out of a single piece comes from an attempt to acknowledge the medium of fabric, and ultimately a richer connection with our clothing.