SLIM: PASSION AND SKILLS - LEARNING AND PRACTISING FASHION
January-February 2012 Issue | MOD Magazine
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AS WE CELEBRATE the 92nd anniversary of Salvacion Lim Higgins, one of the most revolutionary figures in Philippine fashion, we also mark the 50th year of Slim’s Fashion and Arts School, which she founded with her sister, Purificacion Lim. The memory of Slim’s exquisitely beaded ternos and modernized Maria Clara costumes, part of the cultural tapestry of the postwar years and Marcos era, may trick the reader into a false sense of nostalgia — a yearning for some lost golden age of national fashion. Yet as Slim’s own daughter Sandy Higgins is quick to point out, carrying on her mother’s work together with her brother Mark has less to do with nostalgia, which “suggests something from the past that is missed,” but is “more about a continuing legacy and a track record that is unparalleled in this country.”
Indeed, fashion education is necessarily progressive, as fashion itself is always evolving. Slim’s Fashion and Arts School is not fixated on the past, but on the “modern Filipino,” who is always young and always open to reinvention. Any focus on traditional techniques and styles may only be complemented by the latest innovations, and the school offers to teach both. Its two foundation courses of Fashion Design and Dressmaking/Patternmaking may be taken individually, depending on the area each student wants to focus on. Yet Higgins recommends that aspiring fashion designers take both because: “A designer should know how to execute his designs . . . A wonderful design that no one knows how to execute is just a nice idea on paper.” The school also offers specialized workshops ranging from the technical (construction of basic knitwear) to the practical (business basics).
Link to article
Link to article
AS WE CELEBRATE the 92nd anniversary of Salvacion Lim Higgins, one of the most revolutionary figures in Philippine fashion, we also mark the 50th year of Slim’s Fashion and Arts School, which she founded with her sister, Purificacion Lim. The memory of Slim’s exquisitely beaded ternos and modernized Maria Clara costumes, part of the cultural tapestry of the postwar years and Marcos era, may trick the reader into a false sense of nostalgia — a yearning for some lost golden age of national fashion. Yet as Slim’s own daughter Sandy Higgins is quick to point out, carrying on her mother’s work together with her brother Mark has less to do with nostalgia, which “suggests something from the past that is missed,” but is “more about a continuing legacy and a track record that is unparalleled in this country.”
Indeed, fashion education is necessarily progressive, as fashion itself is always evolving. Slim’s Fashion and Arts School is not fixated on the past, but on the “modern Filipino,” who is always young and always open to reinvention. Any focus on traditional techniques and styles may only be complemented by the latest innovations, and the school offers to teach both. Its two foundation courses of Fashion Design and Dressmaking/Patternmaking may be taken individually, depending on the area each student wants to focus on. Yet Higgins recommends that aspiring fashion designers take both because: “A designer should know how to execute his designs . . . A wonderful design that no one knows how to execute is just a nice idea on paper.” The school also offers specialized workshops ranging from the technical (construction of basic knitwear) to the practical (business basics).
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