Criselda Lontok, the fashion designer best known for her eponymous label at Rustan’s, dies at 81.
In a 2013 interview for PeopleAsia, Criselda, who was then one of the magazine’s “People of the Year” awardees, gave readers a glimpse of how she evolved from being a former model to one of the industry’s most enduring fashion icons.
Then fresh from celebrating her 30th anniversary at Rustan’s, Criselda said that the secret lies in listening to her clients. “You have to study your market, heed your customers’ demands. You cannot just project your image or sell what you want, you have to adapt to what women want. I have some pieces in the boutique that are not necessarily my style, but I have them because that’s what my customers want. And I always take advice from them, I ask them what they like and don’t like,” she told writer Tanya Lara.
Criselda’s foray into fashion started when Ben Farrales asked her to model in one of his shows. It was an exciting turn of events for the young lady who lived a sheltered life—so sheltered, in fact, that even when she was already in her twenties, her mother Isabel would sit in the car to wait for her party to finish or send the trusted help to accompany her.
It was a very different time, Criselda said, though she wasn’t much different from the girl who grew up in Lipa, Batangas with her businessman father Gaudencio (who died when she was 12) and mother Isabel. “My father was a disciplinarian, but he didn’t spank us or raise his voice. He just had to look at us and we knew well enough to go to our room,” she shared.
It was that kind of discipline that she passed on to her twin children Carlo Mari and Maria Carla, and son John, and one that she taught her eight grandchildren.
It was also this kind of discipline that endeared her to Rustan’s founder Glecy Tantoco, who took her on as merchandising manager in 1974. Before the Rustan’s matriarch hired her, she told her twice: “Criselda, here we work, we really work.”
“Then there was a reorganization at Rustan’s. I told Glecy I didn’t want to be a merchandiser anymore. I didn’t want to deal with forecasts and quotas. I wanted to be a designer. When I started, Rustan’s was still in San Marcelino and then we transferred to Cubao after a year,” she said. And the rest was history.
A few years after she started her career in fashion design, Criselda, who was in her thirties at the time, separated from her husband and found herself suddenly learning to be independent and singlehandedly responsible for her children. She even learned, for the first time, how to drive a car.
Back then, Criselda displayed optimism when it came to the future of local fashion. “We have so many malls now and new designers coming in, we have couturiers doing retail in Greenbelt 5. Our designers are so innovative that we can now be compared to Hong Kong designers who are also very good. There is no way to go but forward!” she said.
