As Carl Jan Cruz nears the end of his first decade in the spotlight, he’s going deeper into his roots, and pushing to create a recognizably Filipino sartorial language. What does it mean for a fashion label to be, and feel, Filipino? This is a question that designer Carl Jan Cruz has been trying to answer in one way or another for the better part of 10 years with his eponymous label. Trained in London, Cruz made the intentional decision to return to Manila, where he was raised, to start his brand.
From there, he crafted denim, gowns, and pique knits with an instantly recognizable approach to casual elegance, and brought his distinctive vision of contemporary Filipino design with him to New York, London, and Paris. The idea was, in some sense, to give Filipino design a voice on the world stage by bringing it to the cities often looked to as fashion capitals. “When you say Japanese, British, or French, in terms of fashion,” CJ says, “you get a visual cue right away.
” He wants to see the term “Filipino design” evoke just as distinctive a visual language in the global fashion imagination. After close to a decade in business, he’s repeatedly refined his idea of what that might look like. Increasingly, his vision doesn’t require him to travel elsewhere to promote an idea of Filipino-ness, but to root so deeply into the place and culture that formed him that his work serves as a beacon that draws the rest of the world in.
Last July, Cruz and his team released “ I.