Take the Floy Quintos-directed opening ceremony of the Southeast Asian Games last Nov. 30, a spectacle that, for a good hour or so, made us forget all the organizational mess and embarrassment leading to the event.

Not only was it an impressive showcase of the talents of our singers and dancers, our music and dances, it was also a triumph of costume design.

Eric Pineda, head costume designer, said the brief was to incorporate indigenous Filipino materials in the various suites —from the welcome suite and the parade of athletes down to the rap and hip-hop segments —to put texture, patterns and color on the vast stage of the 55,000-seat Philippine Arena.

Pineda himself designed the ternos of the 11 beauty queens/sagalas, with jewelry and accessories by Gerry Sunga and Arnel Papa (too bad, there were no close-ups of queens in their costumes in the TV coverage).

Maxie Cinco dressed Lani Misalucha for the national anthem, as well as all the other singers—Apl d Ap, Christian Bautista, Jed Maddela, KZ Tandingan, Aicelle Santos, Anna Fegi, Elmo Magalona, Iñigo Pascual and the TNT Boys—in the finale.

It was Mitoy Sta. Ana who put a modern, street spin to our local weaves, in the rap and hip-hop numbers of Magalona and Pascual, with a mass performance of 130 dancers. He also designed the piña suksok barong of Robert Sena in his solo number.

The Filipino athletes waved —and wore—the Philippine flag as they entered the stage: their barong Tagalog with a tone-on-tone sun embroidery on the left shoulder, and sported a red and blue collar, were designed by Francis Libiran.—CHECHE V. MORAL