“MASTERS” Lulu Tan Gan, Cesar Gaupo, Efren Ocampo, Mike de la Rosa and Auggie Cordero

Face-Off 2014: The Masters and The Millennials presents 32 designers contemporizing this design theme. How will two generations differ? Manila is in suspense.

Why not? Maria clara is the theme of Face-Off 2014, the annual fashion show of Inquirer Lifestyle, staged this year with Hana Shampoo and Champion Infinity.

This year it will be held on Sunday, November 30, at the Grand Ballroom of Solaire Resort and Casino.

The Filipino woman will wear native wear—be it the terno, baro’t saya or maria clara, or an ethnic woven ensemble—at least once in her life.

Today, the socially visible Filipino woman wears Filipiniana at least once a year.

Aside from the President’s annual state of the nation address (Sona) before a joint legislature, there are more and more occasions these days to don the maria clara and raise its glamour quotient.

Since many competitions and social events revolve around the terno, we thought of focusing instead on the maria clara, which, if you think about it, is more practical to wear—it’s basically top and skirt. Women wear it more than the terno.

So the maria clara is an obvious fashion design theme. It also lends itself to contemporary reinvention.

But beyond that, we also wanted a comparative presentation of the creations of veteran fashion designers and the emerging ones.

Therefore, we opted to title it Face-Off 2014: The Masters and The Millennials. It gathers 18 masters and 14 millennials.

“MILLENNIALS” Joey Samson, Ivarluski Aseron and James Reyes

It should be interesting to see the research that these design artists will undertake to give the maria clara their own design statement.

We are curious to see how the relatively younger designers will research about our history and the maria clara—and what extent and quality of innovation they will do.

We also tapped the country’s Top 2 fashion show directors to do the show—Jackie Aquino for the masters and Robby Carmona for the millennials.

Face-Off 2014 is staged in cooperation with O+USA, Solaire and LOOK magazine. Max Factor is doing the makeup, Jing Monis Salon the hair.

The wait for Sunday is suspenseful.