Inspiration | Destination: Mindanao

by Martha Rodriguez

A lot of times when you plan your life ahead, you go by the rules: work hard, pay the bills, and be the most “adult” you can be, you forget that life is as it is- now.    

Happenstance is the word that best describes VESTI.  We never knew we could create something bigger than ourselves.

We were always fascinated with textiles back in college that we focused our term paper on Mindanao Silk.  We remember an image of Claudine Barretto in a local fashion magazine wearing a Mindanao Silk scarf as a nice accent to her outfit. But it was not how beautiful she looked or how the article was written, rather it was more on the word “Mindanao” that kept us interested.

together with the Mindanao Silk weavers at Laguindingan: Orly and Susan.

Three years later, we found ourselves traveling back and forth Manila and Mindanao that in one of our trips we decided to buy Mindanao Silk fabrics for our mom’s gowns. We met the Laguindingan weavers, Orly and Susan, who showed us fabrics that were ordered by a Japanese buyer but did not continue with the transaction.  We thought, why not make something out of these fabrics? Then the rest is history.