Soft focus

Independent streetwear brand The Artisan gets tender in the -‘ber’ months. In the end, everyone’s a mama’s boy.

For a local label that’s become synonymous with crafting menswear that is at equal lengths thoughtful, dark, and straightforwardly masculine, The Artisan’s latest project looks — or more appropriately, feels — pleasantly surprising.

To coincide with the opening of their first store, product designer Kix Suarez commissioned his mother Lyn, a UP fine arts graduate who gave up pursuing art to raise her children, to work on an especially intimate collaboration with the brand. “Now that my sister and I have graduated and have our own things going for us,” He explains, “It just felt right to share this milestone of opening a standalone shop with my mom.”

Lyn painstakingly hand-painted delicately detailed floral wreaths directly onto the center of 30 oversized gray sweatshirts. The realization of which is a small batch of quiet, unshowy, yet beautifully secretive one-of-a-kind pieces. Kix adds: “Each one is different. Each is made depending on her mood so that not one is the same.”

And it’s true. Each sweater with its boxy ‘90s shape and faded tangle of swirling wildflowers bears a gentle pang of nostalgia. The feeling of having rediscovered some dormant, long-forgotten, vintage score. One that has always existed somewhere in the back of someone’s closet.

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The Artisan Clothing is available in SOMA Stores, Green Sun on Pasong Tamo Extension, Makati. Follow @theartisanclothing on Instagram for details.

Photos by Ralph Mendoza, Styling by Sam Potenciano, Modeled by Elena Ortega