As the first female designer to showcase at The Red Charity Gala, Lulu Tan-Gan showcases a refreshing “farm to fashion” collection
The Red Charity Gala celebrated its 14th anniversary with a landmark event featuring Lulu Tan-Gan, the first female designer to headline the show since its founding in 2009 by philanthropists Tessa Prieto and Kaye Tinga. Famously known as the “Queen of Knits,” Tan-Gan shifted to launch her “farm to fashion” collection, celebrating Filipino Indigenous materials and craftsmanship with the designer’s intentional, modern flair.
The collection brought together elements from across the archipelago, with piña fabric from the Visayas, Kalinga prints from Luzon, and Mandaya patterns from Mindanao. “It was my inspiration—the symbolic bridging of the islands of Luzon, Visayas, and Mindanao,” Tan-Gan says.
Traditional textiles were reimagined with intricate lace flowers, shimmering embellishments, and voluminous yet flattering silhouettes.
The charity auction, benefiting the Hope for Lupus Foundation, the Philippine Red Cross, and Assumption High School Batch 1981 Foundation, raised P5.25 million, through bids on artworks by Ryan Villamael and Angelito Antonio, luxury getaways to Shangri-La resorts, and exquisite jewelry pieces from Diagold and Jewelmer.
Design notes
Drawing from over 15 years of studying the fabric, hand block and digital prints, and dyeing, Tan-Gan describes how her deep personal connection to piña’s qualities has grown.
“Its strengths and weaknesses, how it drapes on the body, and how it responds to various treatments like heat, sunlight, washing, and dyeing—has given me a unique perspective… These insights enable me to design with a refined sensitivity, bringing out the very best in this fabric.”
“If I think piña is ethereal and beautiful, why line it?” Tan-Gan says on the material design. “Its beauty is its translucence, rawness, and earthiness. Yet it is so delicate. What is more important to me is to show the ethereal beauty and not to cover the body. My solution is to trend layering. The piña becomes more visual.”
Among the designs, only Apples Aberin and Jo Ann Bitagcol’s wardrobes were lined, with intentions to show the aqua blue inner color of aqua blue of Aberin’s coat and the Mandaya motif in Jo Ann’s ensemble. The rest of the 60 sets were all unlined, paired with bandeaus and chemises that added texture from underneath.
A goal to reinvent traditional piña
Working directly with a source in Aklan, which produces what Tan-Gan calls “authentic piña,” the designer’s advocacy “supports and sustains our heritage and our fiber and artisanal industry” that reaches the communities who are central in producing, farming, and finishing the textile, “which requires a series of meticulous, time-honored processes… farming, scraping, fiber extraction, knotting, spinning, thread preparation, weaving, dyeing, and hand embroidery and finally, my design.”
In a process that requires skill and patience to bring it from fabric to garment, Tan-Gan is helping the tradition thrive. “Modern fashion has to be relevant to use also,” she says. “Changing the perception of piña as being stiff and itchy to being more fluid and useful is a challenge.”
Tan-Gan notes that over the years, piña has been blended with silk, cotton, and other fibers yet it remains scarce. “Nothing compares to the beauty of pure piña,” she says. “As a heritage fabric, it needs continued support from both agriculture and trade departments, working together to preserve its authenticity.”
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