He’s a fashion blogger when he’s facing his computer. He’s an active Lookbook.nu user when he’s trigger-happy with his camera. He’s a fashion design instructor when he’s at the Philippine Women’s College of Davao.
Last October, he made waves as a fashion designer in the 49th Japan Fashion Design Contest.
His creation, “Dreamweaver,” was included in the top 50 contenders for a fashion show at Meguro Gajoen Hotel in Japan. He bested over 2,500 contestants.
Artajo zoomed past the competition, winning second place. He won over fashion students and designers from France, Russia, Belgium and Germany.
On top of that, “Junnie,” as we call him, also took home a special award from a Japan-based fashion newspaper, Senken Shimbun.
All of these would probably seem so overwhelming for someone who’s only 22, but Artajo was prepared. It’s what he always wanted. His strong yearning for self-fulfillment was where it all began.
He knew he had the beginnings of a fashion designer in him since high school—he designed necklaces, headbands and bracelets for friends and classmates. But he dismissed these little passion projects of his, thinking he would never be able to do fashion later in life as a profession.
He was wrong.
He forced himself to study computer science for the first few semesters, which he never found himself to be productive in, so Artajo pursued fashion. He became one of the pioneering students with a fashion illustration major in the Philippine Women’s College of Davao.
His road to the runway, however, was a rocky one. “I got disqualified in the first design competition I joined,” he says, but that didn’t deter him from pursuing his dreams.
Someday he plans to have his own couture line, to produce RTWs and to design a dress for a red carpet event.
Surely, he’s on his way there. The design contest in Japan was a living testament.
Anatomy
The headgear and the puffy shorts are made of dyed jute sack; the gloves are made with the same material and were spruced up with abaca twine.
His unusual fascination for weaves and gradients were the building blocks of his creation. “My inspiration is the weaving pattern of kalakat,” he says. He explains that kalakat is a walling material for houses in the Philippines, using bamboo slats or the bark of palm oil trees.
“I was inspired to translate its Ikat-like pattern into apparel by further manipulating the large-scale weaving techniques into gradations,” he says.
The ensemble is dominated by gradients of black and brown, with hints of red and orange—colors which Artajo thinks are the safest to use in design competitions.
“They are elegant and they aptly describe the Fall season to me,” he said.
His advice for aspiring and young designers like him is simple—we should keep learning and exploring because fashion is like a runway that never ends, and people will always be looking, praising and criticizing.
When asked what sets Mindanao fashion designers apart from others, he singles out materials.
“We have everything here,” he says, referring to the vast resources available for aspiring designers and professionals alike: beads, coconut fibers, jute, abaca and endless rolls of different fabrics. But more than that, he says, products of designers in Mindanao are teeming with stories, and every piece had a tale to tell.
Artajo’s design tells one of those inspiring stories.
The Japan Fashion Design Contest is highly respected in the industry. It has been running for almost half a century now. The contest, organized by the Dressmaker Fashion Education Promotion Committee of Japan and Sugino Gakuen, is said to be a gateway to the fashion industry. Previous Philippine entries have also made waves in the competition in 2007, 2009 and in October last year.