THERE is little to compare with the excitement over the Los Angeles-Makati Sister City, Inc. Induction Ball on Sunday, May 3. What are we looking at beyond the choreography of the Grand Ball? Image thinkers and labor makers that swath the Filipino-American community are quick to say that we have yet to see a perfect Induction Ball. There was a reason to hope and expect merriment, with an assurance of a meaningful, well-orchestrated program with household names and guests, with no glitches—just the simple but elegant feeling of a fine and dandy evening.
Finally, that Sunday, it did happen. Call it the benign stampede to the Omni Hotel of Los Angeles. Call it an exhilaration produced by many things: by the piercing stars with studded and glittering blue sky above, matching the brimming faces of the special guests or the glare and abundance of sparkling women of elegance and refinement that had the shining iridescence of a rainbow. They were resplendent, gowned, coiffed and blushed, contoured and jeweled to blind an eagle’s daze in a razzmatazz. It was enough to send a fashion editor to die of happiness and make the angels weep, while photographers surround their preys, clicking away with their blinding lights.
The seeds of inspiration
Ms. Grace Mercado Ouano is an author, philanthropist, patron of arts, CEO of the G and E Healthcare Services and creator of Foodtrients, where she continues to chair with dignity and quiet endeavors. She is incredibly humble in her almost ferocious sense of public service, for the good cause, the right reason. In serving the community, she embodies hard work, self-sacrifice and dignity—the gift that that keeps giving.
Mrs. Ouano, stepped aboard, as the Sisterhood’s advisor and lit it like a firecracker!
Los Angeles-Makati Sister City, Inc. President Abraham Lim saw the evening’s success because of a collective collaboration, desire for organizational unity, a wider culture of acceptance, and improved civic influence. A lot of acts may not seem significant at first, but when you add all these pebbles, it is a boulder.
His greatest strength? As seen by his co-workers at the Los Angeles-Makati Sister City, Inc., he is instinctive: known for that gut feel that can literally foresee, predict, reconcile, and overcome anything to accomplish any task. If he sensed a pocket of resistance (very, very rarely) in his team, even after a consensus has already been reached, he moved with (lawyers) raw will. And if sweet reasons did not work, he didn’t allow proposals to die from bureaucratic deaths.
He sums it up with, ”it is very inspiring to work with the Board. They’re committed.”
“What was it really like to be the Vice President?” we asked Ms. Trini Foliente.
“I ward off the problematic, the insolvable and move on to the next phase. I put down sweeping opinions, prejudice, limitations, but welcomed depths of insight. It was a research into everything: from a committee of experts accrued with serendipity, and the magic touch of picking out dependable backups.”
”You’re only one of a group and just a link. that keeps you very realistic,” Ms. Foliente said.
Ms. Foliente’s way of thinking for her enormous supporters was baptizing all of them as unique showcases of doers. Her resiliency combines a natural optimum with a capacity to stand outside herself, accurate for her professionalism.
Interview with Cora DJ Manimbo
It is interesting to write about people who make fashion, rather than only about fashion. It gives you an opportunity of sketching in words, as with a pen, vivid portraits that can be graceful, discursive and always informative prose. Although impossible to emulate, it turns into a very personal perception– irresistible current fashion gossip and chores that they undertake in every presentation.
MDL: What truly gives a woman style, Ms. Cora?
CDJM: There is something ridiculous in this worship of style, especially in the aspect of a woman wearing an outfit which she had just seen advertised. Good taste is not being showy, but keeping it simple. I think there is a little daydreaming and fantasizing even at our age about clothes to qualify for chic—bringing in appropriate stuff so it will have a tinge of adventure in it. That is why women spend and aggregate years of shopping because our purchases make us feel less puny. We are fragile, so we shop, fix ourselves up, to add to ourselves. And while you don’t need all that stuff to make a “superlife,” you need it for admiration.
MDL: What gives this fashionista magnetism and allure, that she can dominate a room from a foot stool?
CDJM: In the fashion world, almost everything connects. It is profoundly wrong if you ever thought that money and labels could get everything fixed and you henceforth look incredible. Class is elegance in appearances and manners.
MDL: What can you learn from them?
CDJM: There is something ridiculous in the worship style in the aspect, especially of a woman wearing an outfit while she had just seen as the latest fad. As they say, while fashion sense of taste is inherent, if you’re not around people with taste and refinement, you can’t get it. You have to let the good stuff sink in on you. A lot of self-delusion probably happens as we read fashion magazines. I think the best thing fashion-wise that ever happened to the Filipino, for some ladies at least, is the Filipiniana mode of dressing. They are fun—young or old.
MDL: Cora, can you dress sexy at our age?
CDJM: Mylah, I don’t see why not. Of course you can never be as succulent as the young décolletage. If you got bosom, V-neck with chairs and pearls, good stockings on ones spring legs are possible for the elder. If it makes you happy, why fight time warps? You have to stay tuned to fashion, learn what to say, what to do. A decent goal of female clothing design is supposed to enhance a woman, not grotesque distortions. You’ll need to take extravagant colors or those graceful flows with all the element of a great dress like: materials, tailoring, imagination.
Today, Mylah, designers collectively say that their current efforts are for women who are busy with important things to have time for adornment.
MDL: And your mega advice to women would be?
CDJM: Give something of yourself away! The most common rule is that it isn’t only good clothes. There should never be a day that you don’t feel happy and proud of yourself in what you’re wearing, enjoying clothes in an honorable enterprise. It will always be considered as a cheer up for the older woman, surviving killer love affairs, dumb mairriage, money woes, job disasters, family trials.
MDL: And loneliness, Ms. Cora?
CDJM: Start throwing out ancient clothes and get the hang of further purging!
That evening Ms. Cora Manimbo and marvelous jewelry designer Oscar Atendido delivered an unbridled celebration of sights and sound of Philippine haute couture, nostalgia and heritage.