Ladies, Menswear Label Nicolo Just Made a Collection Especially For You

(SPOT.ph) There was a shopping frenzy Wednesday afternoon at Salcedo Village’s cafe slash bar Open House World. Clearly, the fashion crowd was excited over the launch of designer Nicolo Perez’s debut womenswear collection, a collaboration with fashion-forward ready-to-wear brand R.A.F. When before women could only take their picks from the exclusively menswear offerings of Nicolò—kind of like browsing thru their style-attuned boyfriend’s closet—now Perez has created fashion that’s really tailored for ladies.

It didn’t take much to convince Perez to collaborate with R.A.F., a brand targeted for  the modern career Filipina who likes to stay ahead of the curve fashion-wise. “I was immediately open to the idea because I’m a friend of [designer] Martin [Bautista] who did the last collaboration and I really liked his collection,” Perez told Spot during the launch. “It’s also a nice chance for me to return to womenswear because, before my brand, I was doing womenswear in fashion school, and even as a child I started falling in love with fashion thru womenswear.”

If indeed women’s clothes were Perez’s gateway to choosing a life in fashion, it’s no surprise that he seems to know a thing or two about what women want: at the shopping event, his women fans were picking not just one but two or three pieces from the 16-piece R.A.F. collection, made up largely of separates they can mix and match with pieces from this Nicolò x R.A.F. bunch or from stuff in their own personal closets. Think light jackets, pants, structured tops and a cute bib, all in soft denim, cotton twill, and a sheer polyester material. Tops start at P2,698 while pants start at P2,898—certainly friendlier compared to the prices of Nicolò’s menswear where tops can range from P5,000 to P12,000.

The collection is called Untraje, a reinterpretation of the traje de mestiza, or the “Maria Clara”, a piece of traditional Filipiniana known for its bell sleeves and for being the choice of aristocratic Pinays back in the day. It has stayed with Perez since his History of Filipino Costume class in college. “Even in fashion school that was already my inspiration,” he tells Spot. He even made a few pieces back in the day but they were never released.

This collection, however, is already infused with his popular design motifs for Nicolò—the see-thru materials, the curvy lines, and visible stitching. He also had modularity in mind, keeping things very now by giving a sense of versatility in the pieces.

How does he feel now that his return to womenswear is being so warmly received? “Quite pressured,” he says. “I feel like ‘Do I have to do womenswear now?’ I still wanna perfect menswear but it’s making me think. The original mindset was let’s perfect menswear, but with the reception parang puwede pakonti-konti. That’s why I also want to do this collab kasi to be able to finally give the women stuff that’s really for them.”

The R.A.F. Manila X Nicolò collection is now available in Maisonette stores and Zalora.