Hailed for her iconic and beautifully crafted woven pieces, Lulu Tan Gan is no stranger when it comes to fashion design and merchandising.
Her mastery goes beyond her atelier, boutique, and trademark ensembles as she continues to passionately share her wisdom to young and aspiring student-designers as the consultant of De La Salle-College of Saint Benilde’s Fashion Design and Merchandising Program.
She unselfishly shares a better understanding on fashion by unraveling the thin threads that tie and separate art, design, craft, and fashion.
“Art is always personal. You do not necessarily have to like it. Design tends to be more commercial,” Tan Gan said. She clarified further that artists and designers both create visual compositions through a mutual knowledge base, but with entirely different reasons altogether.
According to the fashion expert, art is a unique creation from an artist’s view or emotion shared with the public so others may be inspired by it or relate to it.
“The most successful works of art today are usually those that successfully establish a strong bond between the artist and the audience,” she declared.
Tan Gan said that the job of designers like her, on the other hand, is not to invent something new but to strategically communicate a fundamental purpose. She explained that in fashion designing, the reason is to motivate the audience to purchase the finished product.
“Before you execute a design, you have to contemplate ‘Who are my clients?’ It is not just [about making clothes]. You have to be certain it sells,” she averred.
Meanwhile, she elaborated that craft draws from culture and is worked upon by skilled workers. “Unlike fashion, it stands on its very own ground without bothering to be particularly relevant to the trends.” She stressed that in joining the fashion industry, it is vital to be familiar with the craft of each geographical region as it greatly assists the designer to be sensitive to the materials and moreso discover where to tap the sources best for local supplies outside of Manila.
However, Tan Gan believes that craft may merge with design—say, if the traditional elements of the former were incorporated with contemporary materials or style, or if modern technology was used in the creation of a more relevant item.
“If art is an emotional piece, design is a purposed piece, and craft is a skilled piece, then fashion itself means trend,” she proclaimed. “When you are a fashion designer, you always have to be in trend. You have to constantly think and innovate to be able to sustain a brand.”
Tan Gan, who encourages the use of stylized local and traditional wear by promoting Filipino fabrics and craftsmanship, likewise shared her insights regarding the local indigenous theme currently being highlighted in the fashion scene.
“Understanding the culture of indigenous people is important,” she said. “Remember that for them it might be invasion.”
To illustrate further, she cited the use of trapunto, which means “to embroider” in Italian and “to prick with a needle” in Latin, as an example of using textile in the field.
Alongside appropriation, the “Queen of Knitwear” warned the risk of taking inspiration from other creations. She imparted that in Benilde’s FDM program, students are not allowed to open fashion magazines during their brainstorming. “You have to start your creative process using the mood board. Going through fabric manipulation, you will eventually find your identity and you will be able to design,” she encouraged.
To be able to get a better grasp of the fashion industry, it is of utmost importance to know the differences among the four creative expressions. Most of the time, the words “art” and “design” are commonly interchanged. Tan Gan simply puts it as, “Good art inspires, is interpreted, is a matter of taste, and demands talent while good design takes skill, is understood, is a matter of opinion, and motivates.”
