(FROM left) Donnie Tantoco; Rico Tantoco of Rustans; Nelson Yap, chief executive officer and founder of Benjamin Barker; Veron Chow, chief designer of Benjamin Barker; Joel Tan, business development manager of Benjamin Barker; and Anton Huang.
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Was it ever 'uncool' to wear a suit?
Perhaps, for a certain demographic, the coat, pants, shirt and tie "set" symbolize the stodgy generations of previous decades.
Yet one Friday evening at the men's section on the ground floor of Rustan's Makati department store, young men in suits — or a part of suit… okay, a suit of varying interpretations — made a beeline for the racks bearing shirts, pants and blazers of the Benjamin Barker brand.
And at the center of it all was the man himself — Nelson Yap, looking as cool and comfortably stylish in a light-colored coat.
The Singaporean businessman, second of three siblings, went into the fashion business in 2009 after getting his hands wet in the filmmaking business.
Asked how he got into retail, he laughed and recounted, "Yes, my passion is in film, but due to some unfortunate circumstances in my family — my dad had cancer — so after I graduated, I had to come back to the family business, which is something garment-related…. After three years of doing it, I decided to start my own brand, the way I wanted it, and I built it from the ground up, and this is it."
Suited for the job
"We want to make suits cool again. Because if you look at our campaign… you have people buying suits and wearing sneakers, and caps… I think we are trying to reimagine the traditional suit to something more modern. And now we are even evolving actually into something more futuristic," Yap told DAILY TRIBUNE in a group huddle.
"Previously we were more on classics. Right now, we are trying to be more innovative using technology," he added.
By this, he must have meant the shorts that young men were flocking to — anti-spill, anti-UV and so on. These undoubtedly should delight fashionable millennials and Gen Z.
What actually drives the brand are the "stories" — something that could be based on Yap's filmmaking education in Australia.
His vision is "to provide quality and stylish menswear that is also affordable." In Manila, the shirts go from P5,000 and up, while the coats are priced at P12,000 and up — a good brand to start building your cool suit wardrobe.
