If you missed jewelry designer Wynn Wynn Ong’s groundbreaking jewelry-slash-fashion show late last year, now’s your chance to see six of the best jewelry pieces from the show, plus more than 200 pieces culled from her 16 earlier collections. Dubbed Wynn Wynn Ong: Redefining Boundaries, the retrospective is currently on exhibit at Yuchengco Museum in Makati until June 15.
Writer Jeannie Javelosa, Yuchengco Museum’s curator, proposed such a show to Ong as early as 2015. She also came up with an apt title that encompasses what Ong has achieved as a creative person.
The idea became more relevant after Ong realized that 2016 marked her 15th year as a designer. Her November show last year for Metro and Metro Society added another dimension to her artistry when she was asked to collaborate with fashion designer Milka Quin to do the clothes as well. The show also featured a number of established designers, who were asked to do clothes incorporating Ong’s jewelry.
For this show, she and Javelosa concentrated on pieces on loan from Ong’s clients as well as pieces, which she felt “were the best representations of each phase or movement” in her journey as an artist.
“I also placed emphasis on my Philippine-in spired pieces like my burda barongs as well as my jeweled pieces with miniature paintings,” Ong added.
They could have displayed more since not a few of Ong’s clients were quite generous in lending their respective pieces. Although almost the entire museum is devoted to Ong’s work, she still had to be judicious in her selection.
One noteworthy addition to the collection is Ong’s collaboration with model-photographer Jo Ann Bitagcol and stylist Michael Salientes, which resulted in a series of blown up photographs of prominent personalities captured in various moods and poses while wearing the designer’s jewelry.
“The photos were a major part of my 15th anniversary celebration last year,” she said. “I had never made a look book, and it was my daughter’s idea to create a digital one that revolved around my muses. Each of the subjects featured in the photograph is someone I have either great rapport with or whom I admire for his or her passions. I was fortunate that everyone said yes.”
Compared to the collaboration she did last year, which took six months of intense work in design and on the production floor, not to mention “in-depth collaboration and a whirlwind of meetings,” this year’s retrospective with Yuchengco Museum “was quieter.” She also credits the museum’s staff for being “wonderful” collaborators.
“It involved a lot of planning, communicating with clients, and editing,” she said. “The real physical work came during the setup.”
“The past year has been wonderful, not necessarily because of the high profile public events, but because I had the opportunity to work with people I’ve come to respect and admire,” Ong continued. “I can’t think of celebrating or redefining my own boundaries.”Read more at:prom dresses uk | evening dresses uk
