A textile heartbreak and healing

I remember how, during the pandemic, my heart broke. My story is not unique, for I know many entrepreneurs who went this same route. But this is my story.

During the pandemic, I made a decision to stop the GREAT Women textile business that I was so immersed with. We had been working with close to 40 weaving communities and had an international market opening through our project with Christian Louboutin and his Manilacaba in 2017 to 2018. I was already meeting Filipino designers in the United Arab Emirates (Michel Cinco and Furne One among the more notable ones) for international markets.

I had to stop it all. I remember trying to hold back tears when I would receive texts from our indigenous weavers asking if we wanted to continue buying their textiles. How could I? With everything at standstill and lock-ins, plus a stock for a second fashion show and a whole room full of beautiful handwoven textiles… everything went full stop.

Entrepreneurs go through such reflection when one suffers a loss in business. But I guess because GREAT Women textiles was a socially impactful endeavor, it was doubly harder to take the loss. I mourned for this because there were so many lives involved that were hinged on this livelihood of weaving. And unlike other designers who would support one or two communities, GREAT Women took on a national network of close to 40 weaving groups per our data showed.

Our back-end work on the development side involved technical checks with threads and looms, to market training for sales and order-taking, coloration and trends-directed textiles planning and financial literary for our weavers, plus processes that included creative ways for loans to get threads to them. Partnerships with government (Philippine Textile Research Institute or PTRI) and technical schools were signed, too, to create the first micro-yarn facility, especially in Iloilo. (I also had to find a way to get out of this during the pandemic). But we had to sell, sell, sell textiles and textile products, too — an upward challenge for such a small local market then.

Throughout the lockdown, I attempted to sell the textiles just to recoup the capital. To known designers like Rhett Eala, we promised our unique Bagobo Tagabawa contemporary textiles so he could get them whenever he could sell his tops. Other designers who sold pieces at the high-end Artefino Fair came and went home with our textiles. I created a whole set of home pieces (cushions, bedcovers, table-textiles) which are used now at Banahaw Circle Nature Retreat in Mount Banahaw in Dolores, Quezon, another endeavor I started with two friends during the pandemic.

Today, I am glad to see how the whole Filipiniana market has exploded that help support the weavers. Many have told me I should have continued the textile business but the local markets are just too small. I continue to hear from friends and family that GREAT Women was ahead of the curve. And we really cannot compete with China and India’s cottons, or Thai silk even.

One sad thing is so many of our youth do not want to go through the tedious and detailed handwoven work anymore. So many of our weavers are aging and with them, the slow disappearance of skills. Despite the struggles, the handwoven textiles industry continue to survive through cultural revivals for interior and fashion designers using them, and bazaars and fairs that support market access.

Community involvement through regional fairs and fashion shows help entice the youth to give weaving a go. These fashion shows highlight traditional textiles with modern fashions. Some examples of this are in Kalinga for their annual Laga Fashion Show, The World Costume Festival in Vigan, Ilocos Sur and Miag-ao‘s Hablon Festival. Large retailers like SM hold the Iloilo Province Indigenous Fiber Fashion Fair with top local fashion designers; and the Panubli-on Heritage Trade Fair (in partnership with the Department of Trade and Industry).

The Department of Science and Technology (DoST), through the PTRI, has The Philippine Handloom Weaving Center in Taguig, which now exhibits modern looms, serving as a national hub for weaving innovation. DoST-PTRI has handloom weaving innovation hubs in Pangasinan (Sitio Mapita, Aguilar) and Occidental Mindoro.

In Iloilo, a shared-service facility was launched for pandan weavers, featuring solar dryers, sewing and riveting machines — boosting sustainability in remote weaving communities. The Bayo Foundation with the DOST-PTRI established a Regional Textile Digitization Hub in Baguio City. Here, Cordillera weavers received training in digital weave designs and access to design software to help expediate design development and reduce waste. This initiative also includes creating a nationwide registry of weaves for documentation and to stop any counterfeits entering the market.

The DTI and local governments are actively empowering weavers with infrastructure and skills enhancement training, specifically to pass on both traditional and new weaving techniques to diverse community members, many of them indigenous peoples. It is often from the indigenous communities that the most exotic textiles pieces continues to be made. This has been done in Nueva Vizcaya and in Bukidnon (Talakag).

In a recent trip to Baguio, I was so happy to see how Ibaloi and Kalinga textiles and Abel are nicely displayed at the Easter Weaving Showroom; and similarly in smaller market spaces in the provinces. National exposure for high-end market fairs are still with groups like Artefino, Maarte and Likhang Habi. The brand Bayo opened Bayo Atelier in Greenbelt 5, creating a full circular system from community loom to retail store.

Today, there are two national competitions that offer recognition with cash prizes and cultural visibility: the Lourdes Montinola Pina, and the Eloiza Hizon Gomez Abaca Weaving Competition, often held at the Likhang Habi Market Fair. Together, these efforts show that textile weaving is more than craft — it is livelihood, identity and innovation threaded together for the future.

So as a culture advocate, I am happy to continue supporting our traditional textiles and weaving communities. But as an entrepreneur, I am humbled that I had a small part and the chance to work with all these 40 weaving groups – all of them women weavers, in our attempt at helping uplift their livelihood, and develop a sustainability path for them.

I hold in my memory trips to Lanao del Sur, Marawi City in 2018, where because of the siege of Marawi, all the women weavers had no livelihood. I remember one weaver go back to a ransacked home finding her backstrap loom, started to weave and cry gently, creating beautiful lozenge-like designs representing her tears.

Or how in Tublay up in the Cordilleras, we challenged the Ibaloi women to “break the mold of tradition” and create their own expressive personal design, and properly document the process so they could teach others. The results were such exquisite patterns that looked like fine Italian or French natural yarned textiles. Not to be forgotten were the Miagao Hablons, where weavers started to blend exquisite embroidery into thin cotton weaves.

This weekend, 12 to 14 September, (and into October which is Indigenous Peoples Month or until our textiles last), RTW Designer Charito “nicknamed Yoya” Gueco-Verdier will be collaborating with us using GREAT Women textiles under her super versatile but edgy brand called Yoya. We both called the event a “Co-Create Edition” where people will have a rare opportunity to select from the existing textiles. They can choose from Yoya’s signature cuts, styles and patterns and have their item made and tailored. This is unique as Yoya does not really make one-off pieces. This will be at the Yoya store in Greenbelt 5 (Level 2) in Makati City.