Cover This November, Lulu Tan-Gan presents Tailored Traditions: a collection of piña “shirt stories” that explore the harmonic possibilities of the handwoven pineapple fabric
This November, Lulu Tan-Gan presents Tailored Traditions: a collection of piña “shirt stories” that explore the harmonic possibilities of the handwoven pineapple fabric
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The Filipino designer known as the “Queen of Knits” returns with Tailored Traditions, opening this November at Powerplant Mall
Lulu Tan-Gan listens to piña before she looks at it. “I mostly engage with piña through the cutting process,” she says. “I love the crisp sound while cutting.” Her design then changes as she lays out the pattern. She may lengthen it, widen it or reshape it, always watching that no inch of the weave is wasted. That attention to the sound of the cloth and the economy of the cut runs through her work, and this November it arrives at a pop-up on the second floor of Powerplant Mall. There she launches Tailored Traditions, a collection of piña “shirt stories”.
The collection pairs piña with the tailored shirt: barongs, oversized dress shirts and vests in the finest piña and piña blends. Tan-Gan calls the result “artisanal fashion that embodies understated luxury, with travel-friendly designs that seamlessly blend practicality, elegance and the timeless beauty of piña.”
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Above The Ma. Tinet Shirt by Lulu Tan-Gan
Above The Ma. Kaoru Coat by Lulu Tan-Gan
The Ma. Tinet Shirt by Lulu Tan-Gan
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“In a world often obsessed with extravagance, true luxury resonates to those who understand the value of refinement and quiet confidence,” Tan-Gan says. “It embraces simplicity and authenticity.” The shirts also trace her 20 years with the fabric, through textile manipulation, surface treatments and new colourways. “With the rising interest in piña, I feel that I have come full circle,” she says. “With Tailored Traditions, I return to the essence of my journey: modelling heritage for contemporary use.”
The circle began with yarn. Tan-Gan started in 1976 as a shoe designer at SM Department Store, and by 1983 her hand-loomed knits were on the runways of Paris Fashion Week. “Yarn is my medium,” she says. “Knitting and weaving are my languages.” She was knitting garments to shape on a hand loom decades before “sustainability” and “small batch” became fashion vocabulary. After 20 years with knits came PiñaWear, prompted by a question she put to herself: “What makes me a Filipino designer?” Part of the answer was already in her wardrobe. “I would wear my dad’s barong and adored the pieces made by Barge Ramos using the handwoven fabric.”
The obstacles were there, and they were practical. Piña was then seen as stiff and reserved for formal wear, and it needed dry cleaning, which made it costly to maintain. Tan-Gan saw a versatile material for shirt jacks, boleros, capes, coats and caftans. “I started to develop piña into washable, fluid textiles,” she says. “I designed and engineered it for easier packing and travel.” She studied the cloth at its structure, dissecting warp and weft, and learned to cut it so that it fell from the body more fluidly. She took up dyeing, washing and creating her own local motifs, too. “This allows the textile itself to guide the design,” she explains. Her pieces are unlined so the fabric’s quality shows, and she suggests wearing them over skin-friendly shirts, chemises or lace.
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Above The Isla Long Vest by Lulu Tan-Gan
Above The Ma. Fran Shirt by Lulu Tan-Gan
The Isla Long Vest by Lulu Tan-Gan
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When she began, she says, piña’s potential “was not yet widely understood.” Today, she observes, discerning luxury consumers favour artisanal pieces that honour tradition, craft, source and identity. For Tan-Gan, the conversation begins at the source. “When I talk about ‘farm-to-fashion’, I am referring to how we source our fabrics—understanding that our textiles come from the provinces and the farms where our weaving traditions continue to live on.” And she has a view on why that matters beyond the rail: “Tradition thrives when it evolves through contemporary participation.”
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Angela Nicole Regis Guiral is a digital editor at Tatler Philippines. She studied journalism and has since written features that look closely at how culture, lifestyle and social impact converge, while occasionally wandering into the worlds of style and travel.
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