By Alex Y. Vergara
Mark Bumgarner’s debut collection as an RTW designer, including accessories such as bags, shoes and jewelry pieces, shared the ramp with Kashieca’s latest collection worn by some of the country’s most iconic models on Day Two of the recently concluded Bench Fashion Week Spring-Summer 2019 at The Playground. The show opened with a collection of decidedly edgier pieces from multi-brand store Assembly.
Under the label Bumgarner Studios, the young designer came up with dressed-down summer looks inspired by his past couture collections, including plain and printed dresses and separates that could be dressed down or up depending on the occasion and time of day. Although “young and playful,” as Mark described them, the prints splashed on some of his dresses are “floral abstracts” that would work well, he said, for a cocktail or evening event.
For his creations that made use of plain, solid fabrics, the designer’s color palette was confined to such shades as peach, nude, millennium pink, marigold, aubergine and black. The designer also showed his strengths as a tailor by producing impeccably constructed shift dresses, jumpsuits and separates with semi-fitted tops and flouncy, wide-legged pants.
At the same time, Mark also showcased his jewelry collection made of natural gemstones such citrine, topaz and garnet on some of his models. They also wore Bumgarner Studios shoes and bags made of lambskin, suede, phython and croc leather.
Located at Greenbelt, Bumgarner Studios was launched last February without an attendant fashion show. No stranger to staging big shows, last Saturday’s event was the first time Mark did a fashion show featuring his RTW line.
“For this collection as well as the first one I did to mark the store’s opening, I looked back to my past couture collections, as I try to keep the DNA [of my aesthetics] even though they’re two separate brands,” said the prolific Mark, who has been designing for a little over five years now.
Bumgarner Studios’ dresses, he continued, are “more wearable and available in sizes.” Unlike his made-to-measure creations, which can only be produced once for each country (Mark is represented abroad by certain sellers), his RTW dresses come in sizes. Each size, however, is limited to five pieces. Although they’re RTW, he said, they can’t be mass-produced because Mark wants “to keep the premium.”
“I design everything myself,” he said. “I don’t have an assistant designer because I feel that it’s too early for me to have stuff designed by another person.”
Meanwhile, senior models, or what the local fashion industry lovingly describes as “senyoras,” such as Suyen Chi, Desiree Verdadero, Marina Benipayo, Patty Betita and Tweetie de Leon modelled Kachieca’s latest season’s collection consisting of plain, printed and polka-dotted dresses and various ensembles.
