Pinoy is lone featured artist in WEF-Asean

PHNOM PENH – For 30-year-old Cebu City-based designer Francis Sollano, there is beauty in trash.

And one can even wear it proudly, such as in the World Economic Forum on ASEAN (WEF-Association of Southeast Asian Nations), where he is the lone featured artist in the two-day event that gathers more than 700 world business and political leaders in this Cambodian capital.

Sollano is a veteran of fashion shows and exhibits in London, Paris and New York, showcasing that there is wealth and beauty in what most people consider trash. 

But this is the first time that there is a Filipino artist featured in a WEF on ASEAN event.

The World Economic Forum was established in 1971 as a non-profit foundation with its headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland. The forum holds annual meetings in Davos, Switzerland, but also convenes regional meetings each year across Africa, Europe, Latin America and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN).

The designer’s exhibit includes three sculptures dressed in his wearable art and is prominently displayed on the right side of the entrance used for guests in the WEF that starts today at the Sokha Hotel.

Sollano said he makes sculptures that showcase wearable art. 

“I will make a wearable dress and put a waste appliqué on it. A lot of people think that when it is wearable art they think it is Lady Gaga, but what they do not know is it is applicable on daily wear. So, what I will do for my client is I will make an actual dress and then I put an appliqué of garbage,” he added. 

Sollano, an artist and co-convenor of Youth for a Livable Cebu, is no stranger to such a gathering of world leaders, having been part of the creative team of Kenneth Cobunpue, who designed the venue for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Leaders’ Summit dinner held in Manila last November 2015.

This is also not the first time that Sollano attended a WEF gathering.  He is one of the Global Shapers chosen by WEF in Davos, Switzerland, for his art of “trashion” which uses trash as fashion.

“We create fashion accessories, jewelry, clothing and costumes from what used to be considered garbage, thrown away items, and they are given new life by creating more value into them,” he said.

Sollano added that he should be very creative and innovative to make the garbage or trash into something that the public and the media would appreciate, saying that the “movement” has seen positive feedback from the fashion industry.

“More fashion brands are looking at how they can make use of their waste into something functional.  From their waste they create bags or other components in their new design.  That is how the fashion brands are now moving, adapting to the idea of trashion,” Sollano pointed out.

According to “The New Plastics Economy,” a WEF report, the world’s oceans will be filled with more plastic than fish by 2050 in terms of mass. 

“It is painful to see garbage littered all over the cities,” Sollano said, “I wish to reignite a culture that truthfully values our environment and takes responsibility over our garbage.

Sollano likewise said that it is high time that the Philippines and the ASEAN as a community preserve our region’s culture and art.

“And I really love indigenous fabrics like t’nalak. In fact I will wear a jacket with t’nalak appliqué.

So that is sustainable fashion. They really wait for the plants to grow, to harvest… even the weaving and the dyeing of colors and the hand looming – it is really to lobby for sustainable fashion as I also want more people to be aware of sustainable development through fashion,” he said. 

Sollano’s exhibit coincides with the time when President Duterte heads the ASEAN 2017 and will be among the prominent guests in the WEF on ASEAN event here in Phnom Penh.

Sollano stressed he looks forward to meeting the President when he joins the other leaders at the Sokha Hotel.

“He is scheduled to pass by and check on my exhibit. I am really super excited to meet the President,” Sollano said.