Hello! I’m blogging from my hotel room in Cebu, where I am spending the Sinulog Festival weekend with my mom and sister. It feels really great to be back here after all these years and with so many new things to experience! First, a quick outfit post to commemorate what must be the first time you’ll see me wearing sneakers in this blog.
Top: Rampage (worn here)
Shorts: Promod
Sneakers: Converse
Fashiony shoes may come and go, but a pair of black low-cut Chuck Taylors will look good with everything forever.
We landed at Cebu Thursday night and I wasted no time getting social. After checking in and having a quick dinner, I sped off to One Mango where I met up with Kristine of In Style Cebu for the launch of Blanc magazine and my first taste of Cebu indie fashion. (I also met Eden that night but alas, I didn’t get the chance to have a photo with her!)
Blanc Magazine is the first Cebu-based fashion and art website dedicated to promoting Cebuano artists and events, and to celebrate their latest issue they held a fashion show featuring one piece from 15 young designers. Fashion shows rarely excite me these days, because many designers either a) focus on trendy pieces that are obviously designed to sell, or b) add too many superfluous details in an attempt to come off as “couture” or “avant garde”. However, the artists at the Blanc magazine show had me at the edge of my seat the entire time.
I don’t know what it is about this island, but Cebu-based designers have a certain kind of imagination and energy that you don’t often find among many designers in Manila. Every single ensemble was a cleanly executed celebration of patterns, texture, and structure that managed to remain very wearable. Seriously, my (overexposed) photos don’t do justice to the clothes. If it were possible to buy the items off the models I would have done it that very night, and now I wish I had the sense to write down the names of the designers whose pieces I really liked. Then again, that’s what Blanc Magazine is for. I highly recommend that you check it out if you want to see fresh fashion from Cebu’s young designers, who I’m sure will be world-famous someday. Their latest issue can be found here, though I’m not too crazy about the fact that it’s literally a flash-based digital magazine rather than an actual website like Refinery 29.
A trip to Cebu wouldn’t be complete without seeing the ocean at least once. We rented a boat from Islands Banca and spent a day island hopping underneath an overcast sky. This was not your average island tour – we were spoiled with large comfy bean bags, fresh buko juice, and the services of a massage therapist. The highlight of the trip was not so much the beach fix as it was the relaxing massage I got on the gently rocking boat as we made our way back to Mactan. I highly recommend Islands Banca’s cruises if you want to be pampered while exploring Cebu’s neighboring beaches.
Back in the city, I had the chance to grab dinner and drinks with Kaith! We hung out briefly in Manila before she and Helga flew off to Malaysia for the Nuffnang blog awards, and I’m glad we were able to party the night before Sinulog. Tomorrow, we plan to do dinner and a bit of shopping at the Dollface Cosmetics store, which I’m really looking forward to visiting.
And then of course, there was the Sinulog festival itself but I’m going to save that for the next blog post.
my friends & i are going to Cebu this March, & i really want us to do an Island Banca cruise! how much was yours? :o
Gela
Jealous of your Cebu trip to the beach :) I’ll keep Islands Banca when I get the opportunity to visit Cebu again
Thanks for including Islands Banca Cruises in your blogpost Laur! Glad you enjoyed it.
Hey Andrea, you’re welcome! I really had fun at our cruise and I’d gladly do it again. :D
Nice1 I’m missing Cebu now! I’ll make sure to try Islands Banca when I go back. Btw, your necklace is gorgeous! Where’d you buy it? :)
Thanks! :) I bought it at a fair trade exhibit here at the hotel. It’s made in Cebu and the necklace I got was the only piece they had of that design. :D
The gown (third photo from the fashion show) looks sooooooooo gorgeous, oh my. I wonder who the designer is!
I wish i could go tehre as well. Haaay i love CEBU.
How i wish i could go there as well. I really wanna see CEBU