Puma-Project Runway at the office...

Our big boss recently called me to a meeting attended by the senior managers in the department.

When I walked into the meeting room, the first thing he said, "There! That's the one we're looking for, or at least something like that."

He was talking about the top I was wearing. What he says next really caught my by surprise. I was asked to come up with a design for a top that the guys in the department can wear. Yaiks. I know I love checking out men.style.com (well, not as much as I love style.com), but I'm certainly no Christian Siriano. Hehe!

The boss tells me what he expected of the top that I was going to "design." Sheesh, just writing that makes me cringe because I know I'm no designer. Hehehe! At the back of my head, though, I knew this was one project I would really enjoy doing. I mean, come on. How often do you get to do something like this? And if the project does push through, who wouldn't be proud seeing someone wearing something you've "created."

You see, we don't really have a uniform at work. Well, we do but I don't wear it. (And the other five guys at the office don't wear it either.) Eeeep!

The reason for this is that we sometimes go on field or attend certain events where the uniform isn't really the best thing to wear. Particularly in my case, you can't really expect me to be in long sleeved shirt tucked in a pair of black slacks while documenting an emergency response activity or attending a meeting in some far flung area.

But I guess the boss still wanted us to wear something that would identify us as members of our team when we attend external events. Hence, the need to come up with something.

So the first thing I do after leaving the meeting was calling my friend Norman. I knew he always had his shirts made to measure. And I remember him wearing these really nice shirts. When I asked him where he bought his shirts, he told me he had it custom made. He was definitely the person to approach.

I give him a call and tell him the project. I tell him the ideas I have inside my head and he gives me a number of tips and things worth considering. He promised to give me the name of a good tailor. I told him I'll just get back to him as things firm up.

Next thing I did was visit a fabric store. I can't remember the last time I visited a fabric store. No, wait. It was in Saigon. But that was because I was accompanying Wes in his search for fabrics that can be made into pillow cases and so on. I didn't really check out the available textiles because obviously, I'm a fan of clothes that come in beautiful and mouthwatering carrier bags. Haha!

Until I paid a visit to that fabric store.

There were just so many beautiful textile prints! I didn't think it was going to be that exciting. The sales person who first approached me was masungit, but I didn't care. Thankfully, she left me alone and I approached a nicer sales person. It took me awhile going through the possible fabrics to get for the project. After deciding on the dominant color - blue, naturally, since it was our company color - I asked the kind man to cut some samples for me.

What I need to do now is to come up with some sketches. That shouldn't be too hard. That's the "beauty" of menswear. In a way, I like it that it's sort of restricted. That makes it a bit easy for non-designers to come up with something on paper. I think I can tap into the artist in me and do some sketches. Hello, I would be a disgrace to my father whose watercolor paintings (and a few oil works) hung on the walls of our home. Hehehe! And I did get a flat 1.0 (or was it 1.25) in my Visual Arts class under the late Sid Hildawa back in UP. Surely, I can draw something. Hehe!

I still don't have fabric samples for the "corporate Monday" look (Hehe!), but I'm sure it wouldn't be difficult to find the fabric for that. I just need to visit a Filipiniana store.

So there, I'm kinda excited for this. I hope to show the ideas to my boss this week, and I'm crossing my fingers that he will give the green light to do the project.

It shouldn't be too hard. The next thing to do would be to look for a tailor who's good but wouldn't charge like I were in a Zegna or a Boss store. Hehehe! Norman said he'll give me some leads, but I would also love to know who the other good tailors out there are. There are only six guys in the department so this shouldn't be too toxic for the tailor.

On a side note, the whole visit to the fabric store made me consider taking up sewing classes. Seriously. Seriously. I mean it's probably something I can still learn, right? Even if I'm already a 30-year old guy!!! Hehehe! Had I known that there are all these nice, nice fabrics available locally, I would've dived into bespoke/made-to-measure long ago. Maybe I would've saved a lot. Hehe! Instead of shelling out thousands of pesos for the long-sleeved shirts all these years.

Exciting, yeah?