Philippine Weaves: A Collector’s Journey (Sabong News)

Despite having been born and raised in Paoay, a renowned weaving town, and having relatives who play significant roles in preserving the tradition, my appreciation for Philippine weaving did not take its full form until just recently. My affinity to weaves, nevertheless, may have always been in my DNA. I recall that I enjoyed visiting great textile repositories like the Calico Textile Museum in India and Tehran Carpet Museum in Iran. Looking back, I also had this penchant for buying ‘ethnic’ fabrics for my mom during my early travels in Southeast Asia. So, in the end, it may not be surprising that I ultimately found myself collecting and dealing in Philippine textiles. I started like many others probably did: buy ‘any ’ representative textile from one weaving community and go to the next. It was a rather directionless, unrefined pursuit. But, as I became more exposed and entrenched in it, I realized how sophisticated Philippine weaves can be. Early in my textile journey, I have been influenced by the likes of ethnic curios trader Dante Ferry, who supplied me with my first vintage Mindanao headscarves, and esteemed textile collector/curator Direk Floy Quintos, who implanted in me that “independence of thought and judgment is the hallmark of an intelligent collector”. Museo Kordilyera’s Dr. Ikin Amores also urged me to conduct further studies on Paoay supplementary weft inabel , while client-turned-friend Singaporean collector of Philippine textiles Hafiz Rashid told me, among other things, how to distinguish real silk from ‘silk’ (i.e., rayon). Indeed, some weaves are so common and commercialized that they may hold little value, while some are impeccable work of art whose worth only increases over time. Remarkable textiles may cost the same as a brand-new iPhone is not at all unusual. A rare collector’s item Tausug pis syabit still made of silk could therefore fetch as much as 10 times more than the price of a regular modern one. Eventually, I found myself willing to spend P35,000 just to acquire a highly coveted single-item woven work—yes, the Ilocano kuripot in me stopped protesting and just gave in after a while. Weaving in the Philippines, after all, is a pinnacle of traditional arts. If a weave is done by an esteemed weaver for over a month, with quality materials and even execution, and bearing one-of-a-kind designs, there should be no reason why the item cannot be catapulted into the ranks of paintings and other fine arts. I also believe that our traditional artists ought to have been the real national artists. They represent their communities as well as embody best the pure form and soul of the Filipino culture. Another thing that I also enjoy is the journey itself: searching for interesting weaves; bargaining, begging and sometimes coercing the owners to sell them to me; and investigating and learning more about them afterwards. It is also a delight that my mom Doreen is supportive, joining me in quenching this obsession most of the time. These are all part of the textile’s evolving story. The rise of low-cost handwoven textiles in the market lately, on the other hand, got me more concerned than ecstatic. The quality is not like what it used to be anymore. Nowadays, loosely woven inabel blankets, for example, are being produced in a factory-like speed using inferior threads. Naturally, sellers compensate this with dazzling marketing gimmicks. Stiff competition has even led to some Yakan patterns being copied somewhere else only to be sold off as ‘Yakan-made,’ making us wonder if they could still be considered authentic. What scares me more is that many customers are being led to believe that this is the standard we should all settle for. So, when you buy a woven item online supposedly taking three to five days to make for only a few hundreds, you might as well want to start wondering about its quality and how much really went back to those who labored in creating them. I have seen excellent centenarian inabel blankets that endure, as well as seen weaves that go out of shape after a few washes. Another advice I always received was, “Choose a direction, only choose premium weaves, and treat them as investments.” Now, I am preaching the same message to others. When buying textiles, one should be keen on the following considerations: material, thread count, origin, technique and design, rarity of an item, and, in some cases, the item’s provenance. When Orientalweaves.PH started, the mission was clear: to bring back the same quality of weaves that we grew up with, and to give attention to the real master weavers who have already been forgotten and overshadowed by the deceptive market. Orientalweaves.PH works with a select few weavers around the Philippines, whose actual works are the only ones it sells. It has spearheaded the revival of extinct weaves like the bitbituka , a category of inabel that has not been woven for many decades, as well as reproduced the original square plangi tangkulo (Tagabawa tie-dyed headscarf) when we have gotten so used to the triangular ones heavily donned with sequins and pompoms. It is also actively promoting the exceptional Paoay sinukitan weaving that has not been given the attention it deserves online. Paoay weaves have always been considered as some of the finest inabel around, so much so that during the galleon trade the town saw the largest volume of traded and exported inabel from the north. Veering away from mass-production, Orientalweaves.PH offers what other shops cannot, and it devotes time to educate anyone who is willing to learn more. It also does not intervene as much as possible, as it wants the weavers to freely express themselves in their textiles. More importantly, it respects the price weavers’ put on their work, so no shortchanging at all. With Celo, an open platform that makes financial tools accessible to anyone with a mobile phone, we have made two weaving communities in Ilocos Norte as beneficiaries of a global decentralized anti-poverty program. Each of our weavers gets USD10/week for seven months from funds pooled from international donors. So, we do not only help them sell, we provide them too with an unconditional basic income to help them get by during the pandemic. We aim at expanding our reach to include weaving partners down south once it becomes feasible, too. If interested in quality Philippine textiles, please visit Orientalweaves.PH on Instagram and Facebook. For donations, kindly check out the Paoay Loomweavers and Lumbaan Agricultural Community at .