For the first time since its inception 30 years ago, Fino Leatherware launches an art-led collaborative project featuring the works of artist Kara Pangilinan. The limited-edition collection will be available at the brand’s flagship store at Power Plant Mall by the end of September.
Since its founding in 1992, Fino Leatherware has always grounded its brand philosophy on Filipino artistry, from the craftsmen to the creatives who have conceptualized its collections. Its most recent campaigns paid tribute to Filipino culture, including a wrist purse called Sipa, which is inspired by a local game, the Vinta bags and clutches that evoke the sailing tradition of Mindanao, and the Puso bags which take their shape from a staple of Cebu’s street food — rice wrapped in banana leaves.
This year, Fino unveils its first collaborative artist-led project titled Art You Can Carry, featuring the works of Kara Pangilinan, who first started to explore art while still a student of architecture at the University of the Philippines.
Fino x Kara is a one-off collection of bags that features the artist’s hand paintings, dated and signed, and accompanied by a certificate of authentication. The 30-piece series is an ode to heritage with Pangilinan expressing the themes of local flora and fauna alongside the Filipina’s evolved identity. Slender palm fronds, gumamela and sampaguita flowers emerge from the bags’ panels, the leather’s varying colors from bright red to pastel hues setting off Pangilinan’s black and white strokes. The artist’s portraits of women in traditional garb bridge generations, with one in particular revealing the gaze of a strong, modern Filipina.
But who is Pangilinan? After earning her degree, she worked in an architectural firm for a few months before deciding on becoming a full-time artist.
Murals and commercial works for brands such as Heineken, Globe and YouTube defined the early phase of Pangilinan’s journey. Simultaneously, she was developing a more personal practice, exploring various thematic concepts and her favored medium at that time, ink on paper.
In the years that followed, Pangilinan diversified into acrylic painting to exploit the full color spectrum of the medium. For her collaboration with Fino, however, the artist returns to the palette that has defined the early phase of her career.
The collection, which will be available by the end of September in Fino’s flagship store at the Power Plant Mall in Rockwell, is introduced by Miss Universe Philippines 2020 first runner-up Bella Ysmael, who epitomizes Fino’s ideal Filipina.
Fino x Kara will be available at Fino, 2nd floor, Rockwell, Makati City. For inquiries, call 02-8898-1456, or follow @finoleatherware.official on Facebook and Instagram for updates.
