#but lol. come on. that's blood bro. thats a bloodstained dress. own up to it.

[cutesilyo]

let me tell you a story about political history, the subtle art of throwing shade, and the power of the dress. it’s centered on a filipino fashion designer named mak tumang. 

don’t recognize the name? well, you might recognize his work.

his most famous dress, the one that pushed his name into national acclaim, is the dress catriona gray wore when she was crowned miss universe 2018. inspired by the mayon volcano, the most popular feature in the hometown of catriona’s mother, the dress was an absolutely stunning fit for an absolutely stunning lady. he went on to design even more beautiful dresses, as seen from his instagram:

now that last one, that’s a little unsettling, isn’t it? not as grand as the others, but it’s still a nice dress, certainly. yet the red in the ombre also definitely makes it look like it’s a dress drenched in fresh blood. surely, a great and respected fashion designer like mak tumang would understand how this design would look like. surely, he knew what kind of image that particular shade of red evoked. surely, there was a message that he wanted to say with this.

here’s some context: it was a dress commissioned by imee marcos.

imee marcos is a current senator. she’s also the daughter of the infamous dictator, ferdinand marcos, whose 21 years of presidency are characterized by opulent wealth for his family and the ruling class, extreme economic disparity between the rich and the poor, and the deaths of many activists, students, and innocents at the hands of state police, among many other atrocities. it was a dark time in filipino history, and a relatively recent one; the nationwide protests that pushed him out of power were only in the late 80′s. imee is no better than her father, though she tries her damnedest to hide it now; in 1977, she ordered the torture and execution of a college student just for daring to ask if she was qualified for her political position at the time. 

so, that brings us back to the dress. gold tainted with blood red, an incredibly astute metaphor for a woman whose family wealth is built on the deaths of her countrymen. 

just to add salt on the wound, yellow is a color heavily associated with the aquino family. i won’t get into how the color association came about, so here’s an article that explains it. the important thing to know is: when marcos was finally ousted, cory aquino rose to take the presidency after her husband, a liberal senator who was strongly against marcos, was assassinated.

putting it simply? mak tumang had made imee marcos, daughter of a bloody dictator, wear a dress that not only symbolized her family’s ill-gotten fortune and various human rights violations, but was also in the color of their greatest political adversary, the ones strongly associated with the end of the marcos dictatorship.

and he made her wear this for the presidential state of the nation address, the most televised political event of the year. 

talk about making a fashion statement.

#mak tumang #imee marcos #fashion design #philippines #mine #i saw a mak tumang dress on my dash and i just HAD to tell this story #look i really want to include how the SONA is generally used by many politicians to make a literal fashion statement! #that same year many progressive congressmen had protest art painted on their clothes #because there were fishermen who died when a chinese ship crashed into their boats #when their shouldnt even have been a chinese ship there in the first place! it was philippine territory! #and it was just more fuel to the fire that is SEA vs china territorial disputes #also i kind of wanted to explain how aquinos were related to yellow #kind of drop the fun fact that. yknow. 'tie a yellow ribbon' is considered a protest song here #but i really wanted to focus on tumang here #i mean i KNOW he doesnt. like. explain any of this in his IG post about the dress #his official reasoning for the symbolism is a lot more politically neutral #but lol. come on. that's blood bro. thats a bloodstained dress. own up to it. #haribon