The potentials of the saguran, or woven buri leaves, in fashion were explored in National Museum of the Philippines (NMP) Bohol Area Museum’s LGBTQ+ Pride Month event, “Weaving with Pride,” held at the old provincial capitol building, which was transformed into a museum, in Tagbilaran City, Bohol, on 20 and 21 June.

“Weaving with Pride,” organized by a team led by Cecilia. U. Tirol, NMP director for Visayas; Rachelle “Tata” C. Lacea, NMP-Bohol administrative officer; and NMP-Bohol information officer Neil Gerard Reyes, highlighted the traditional hand-woven craft, whose practitioners have dwindled over the years, and LGBTQ+ contributions, particularly in fashion.

NMP-Bohol is one of the very few prominent institutions that have been celebrating LGBTQ+ Pride Month in recent years in the island province which many consider as still “conservative.” Bohol has not yet held any Pride marches, has no anti-discrimination ordinance to protect its LGBTQ+ community and is one of several places that declared drag artist Pura Luka Vega persona non grata on 22 August 2023, contributing to the extensive persecution of a queer person and queer expression. But many scholars believe that the Visayas region, which Bohol is part of, has a rich pre-colonial history of LGBTQ+ acceptance. LGBTQ+ persons are said to have high status in communities, particularly as babaylans or shamans, which were said to be cisgender women, gay men and transgender women.

Despite the present situation, many LGBTQ+ individuals have become prominent and contributed significantly to the province especially in the field of culture and the arts. NMP-Bohol remains a beacon in the area with its observance of Pride, which grew this year with “Weaving with Pride.” This year also saw the first time the provincial government held an event to celebrate Pride Month — the exhibit “Pabuhagay,” featuring works by 18 LGBTQ+ Boholano artists, that ran from 18 to 29 June at the Alta Citta Mall in Tagbilaran City.

For its part, “Weaving with Pride” trained the spotlight on six Boholano LGBTQ+ fashion designers — EJ Relampagos, Christian Relator, the tandem of Noel Bompat Estopito and Christian Kent Paglinawan, Christian Bustrillos, and Shanon Pamaong — most of them emerging and promising.

Moreover, five transgender women were included as models during the runway show — Tine Acompanado, Anika Dondoyano, Laurince Catalan, Jane Madrigal and Redden Elnas. While still comprising a small percentage in the number of models, and could appear tokenistic, their participation represented a milestone. “Weaving with Pride: The Runway Show” was most likely the fashion show with the biggest number of trans models in Bohol, aside from being the first fashion show held at NMP-Bohol and the first to be organized by an NMP component museum.

Inclusive craft

According to NMP-Bohol, gay men and trans women may have also engaged in weaving saguran. While the craft is traditionally practiced by women, it does restrict men from engaging in it. There are actually a few practicing male weavers.

“Saguran weaving is not gendered. Unlike other areas where only women weave, saguran weaving is inclusive, not exclusive. While traditionally seen as a woman’s art, the weaving tradition in Bohol has been open to individuals of all genders, embracing a diverse and inclusive community of weavers,” said Christian N. Bacolod, researcher and instructor College of Education’s Institute of Human Kinetics of the Visayas State University main campus.

Bacolod was a speaker in the lecture sessions and workshop component of “Weaving with Pride,” held on 20 June. His talks were “An Introduction to Bohol’s Weaving Traditions” and “From Leaves to

Weaves: Ethno-Botanical Knowledge of Saguran Weavers,” which were part of his thesis for a master’s degree in Art Studies at the University of the Philippines Diliman.

Other talks were “Saguran in Architecture and Design” by architect Nigell Abarquez, creative director of the Tubigon Raffia Gallery, an enterprise that promotes and creates a wide array of items from saguran; and “Incorporating Saguran into Fashion Design: The Risk, Possibilities and Success” by Pamaong.

The lecture series culminated in a workshop on the preparation of the leaves and paghabol or weaving the saguran, led by Maria Trina Sumayang of the Tubigon Raffia Gallery.

The tradition of weaving buri leaves

Bohol has many traditional crafts, arts and practices still alive today, including mat and basket weaving, pottery, performances, and salt-making. Saguran weaving remains the only extant textile weaving practice in the island in Central Visayas.

According to local historian and culture expert Marianito Luspo, textile weaving was practiced in Bohol, using locally grown cotton. He said they have found old upright looms and pieces of cloths in old houses in the towns of Dauis and Panglao. It cannot be ascertained if this kind of weaving was indigenous or introduced.

Earliest known material for clothing in Bohol is textile made of tree barks. A piece of stone used as bark cloth beater found on the island is on display at NMP-Bohol’s permanent exhibit, “Paglawig: The Boholano Way of Life.” It was used “for pounding raw pieces of inner bark from certain trees to make soft and wearable materials.”

Saguran weaving is said to be centuries-old. With a dearth of records or documentations, it is difficult to construct a definitive history of the craft. Memories of living practitioners and studies of researchers are the main sources of information.

According to Asteria Caberte, provincial administrator of Bohol and a former official of the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI), saguran was used traditionally as mats or linings for drying palay and as blankets.

On being used as material for clothing, she mentioned that it was used for uniforms of soldiers during World War II. Luspo said that saguran was used to make clothing, especially after the war, but it had a reputation to being worn only by the poor.

Saguran is a coarse textile. The main material is the leaf shoots of the buri palm (Corypha elata), called buli in Cebuano, the language of the island, from which soft layers are stripped off. These strips undergo several steps in processing them for weaving, involving washing, soaking and drying. The thin buri leaf strips are then knotted together to make longer strands and are woven using a wooden, upright, foot loom, locally called hagbanan.

Saguran weaving is practiced in the northwest part of Bohol, particularly in the towns of Inabanga and Tubigon. According to Caberte, during the early 1980s, saguran weavers were concentrated in Inabanga, while Tubigon was the source of materials.

She said that they began assisting the saguran workers in early 1980s when she was still a field worker of DTI, introducing to them the use of dyes as well as other uses for saguran such as home items. Because of her continuous promotion of saguran, she came to be known as the “Mother of Saguran Weaving.”

Today, saguran weaving can be found in Tubigon, where there is a Tubigon Loomweavers Multi-Purpose Cooperative which was formed in 1989 with the help of DTI and which has a weaving center and showroom in the barangay of Pinayagan Norte. The center houses many looms, where weavers can work. Interestingly, the looms are large, ones of the largest I’ve seen in the Philippines for a traditional craft, difficult to fit in homes. This can be a modern modification to meet market demands. Weavers say that looms at homes are usually installed at the silong, under the house. A sample of a loom for saguran, with a size commonly seen in the country, is on display at the NMP-Bohol. The cooperative said there are presently about 60 weavers in the town, specifically in the barangays of Pinayagan Sur, Ilijan Norte and llijan Sur, and nearby areas. Weavers are predominantly women, usually wives of fishers, farmers and vendors. They produce saguran as well as a wide array of saguran products such as placemats, table runners, leis, home decors, etc. The towns of Inabanga, Catigbian, Sagbayan, Danao and Clarin are presently suppliers of buri materials.

The family-run Tubigon Raffia Gallery, owned by the Abarquez family, also produces and designs saguran products, which are marketed in the country as well as internationally.

Presently, saguran weaving appears to have seen developments with outside interventions, and it will take effort to unearth its most traditional practice and uses.

On the way to be wearable

While it is very possible for saguran to be used for fashion and it has been used for such several times, Pamaong and Caberte admitted that it can be a challenging endeavor.

Pamaong, a multi-awarded fashion veteran trained abroad and a mentor who runs his own fashion school, the Fashion Institute of the Philippines, first used saguran in fashion in 2021 for a virtual fashion show. During that time, there were travel restrictions in place because of the coronavirus pandemic, and they could not go to Manila to buy fabrics. Thus, he explored the local saguran.

“Mahirap (It’s difficult),” they commented.

Because the saguran is usually coarse, a finer weave must be specifically made for fashion. You can only execute bulky and simple style, they said. Cleaning and maintenance of saguran works can also be challenging.

“What I do is more of attachments to a dress. You know, you have a basic dress and you kind of attach the sleeves or collar or frills (made of saguran),” Pamaong said. “So you can detach [them] and then you can wash the dress.”

They added: “You can make special-occasion dress. It is not like inaul or Cordilleran textiles. They are easier to manipulate because they are really fabrics. This one (saguran) needs to be developed.”

Pamaong recommended using saguran for attachments and for simple designs that are not body-hugging.

“I hope it will develop,” they said.

Caberte affirmed that it will be a long journey for saguran to be wearable.

The potentials of saguran for fashion were further explored in “Weaving With Pride.”

Pamaong said they were invited to take part last April. It took two weeks for weaving the saguran according to their preferences including dyeing. They worked on their capsule collections on-and-off for about two months.

The runway show

Five collections with five pieces each were produced by the six designers for the runway show, which was mounted at the NMP-Bohol’s atrium and accompanied by live singing of the renown Loboc Children’s Choir.

The event was graced by Tagbilaran City mayor Jane Yap; Caberte; theater veteran Lutgardo Labad; Jorell Legaspi, NMP Deputy Director-General for Museums; and Arvin Manuel Villalon, NMP Director for Mindanao and Commissioner of the Arts of the National Commission for Culture and the Arts.

The tandem of Estopito, whose signature designs are said to be metropolitan, streamlined and feminine, and Paglinawan presented their collection called “Ang Paghagbung (The Fall),” enlivened by green and bright yellow colors.

According to the designers, their collection was meant to convey the stages of falling in love, “meant to paint the picture of how we transform the moment love comes knocking on our doors” and to say that “love is the currency of the struggle on which the LGBTQIA+ community continues to fight for.” They also wanted to highlight the saguran “as a versatile fabric that works well in blending with other materials to make a cohesive finish.”

A Marketing graduate, who discovered his passion for fashion design during high school and started dressing up clients in 2018, Bustrillos said that his aesthetics range from minimalism to the avant-garde. For his collection, “Fortnight Affair,” he used saguran swaths like draping as well as tiny connected tiles in his designs. He said he was inspired by LGBTQ+ love.

Twenty-six-year-old Relator, who is also an entrepreneur and a Sangguniang Kabataan official, presented the predominantly deep red “Grandiflora Collection.”

“Merging tradition with contemporary medium and embellished with my fascination of nature’s flora is my personal take in working with a collection featuring saguran…. Producing these pieces… was quite the challenge. With a goal of creating staples that are above usual while still staying true to my aesthetics, a quick trip to memory lane was done. I was fond of flowers and floral motifs especially with my projects and artworks done during my school life era thus the main theme of this assemblage, the love of flowers,” he explained.

He added: “Saguran is quite a promising element in the textile industry, though it still does need to undergo a lot of process of refinement to be at par with other local weaves like Piña and banana fiber, feasible for clothing. This calls for government and private units of Bohol to do further innovations for the betterment of this product that we can proudly call our own.”

Relampagos, the founder and first president of Bohol Designers Circle, boasts of being the first and only Boholano designer to showcase a complete collection at the Milan Fashion Week in 2023. For “Weaving With Pride,” he created “The Global Geopark Bohol,” which used the saguran in its natural color.

He explained his collection: “The collection is inspired by the breathtaking karst landscape of Bohol, capturing the island’s unique topography. The raffia (meaning the saguran) is intricately draped and hand sewn to evoke the natural wonders of Bohol, depicting its mysterious caves, winding rivers, and majestic hills. This representation not only highlights the island’s geological beauty but also emphasizes its abundant natural resources, which are crucial to the livelihood of its people. The design pays homage to the richness of Bohol’s environment and its significant role in sustaining the local economy, showcasing the glory and splendor of this remarkable island. Indeed, a global geopark!”

The esteemed Pamaong served as the finale collection with his Maria Clara-inspired collection in the colors of the Philippine flag. They stayed true to the classic terno and feminine silhouette with flourishes made of saguran. The highlight was a Maria Clara bridal gown with a full skirt consisting of many panels.

They revealed: “This modernized interpretation is reduced to three panels forming a sort of pyramid from the waist. The raffia parts are attachments to a base dress which can be removed for easy storage and maintenance. The base dress can stand as an outfit on its own and can be therefore easily washed.”

“Weaving With Pride” showed the potentials and powers of tradition, imagination, inclusivity and acceptance, articulated in how an age-old craft was used in imaginative ways that was made possible by the celebration and inclusion of traditionally marginalized persons.