Patis Tesoro is not slowing down and is as creative as ever

NOW in her 70s, Patis Tesoro, the grande dame of Filipino fashion, doesn’t seem like she will be running out of steam anytime soon.

- Joseph L. Garcia

At a benefit show called Filipiniana is Forever (also the title of Ms. Tesoro’s book, released earlier this year) for the Zonta Club of Alabang on Nov. 4, the designer showed an 86-piece collection (she counted them herself; press releases from the organizers counted 100). None of them were from the archives of the woman who helped revive the dying piña industry back in the 1990s. “All fresh,” she told BusinessWorld after the show.

One hundred percent of the ticket sales for the evening — the show was held at the Grand Hyatt Manila’s ballroom — was earmarked towards the Zonta Club of Alabang’s advocacy programs, centered on women’s health, education, livelihood, and development. It was also a selling show, with about 30% of the sales from Ms. Tesoro’s clothes going towards the Zonta Club.

Men clad in (just) malongs, with different checked patterns and embroidered with gold outlines, opened the show. Women wore pink pants and embroidered baros (a loose top that serves as the upper garment of a traditional Filipiniana dress), then a silver brocade top with black figures over a dress. Ms. Tesoro’s signatures were seen all throughout: native textiles (sheer piña with heavy, opaque cotton