Tucked into a corner at her home studio, Lydia Querian sews a piece of fabric with blue, diamond-shaped patterns into a Christmas stocking for her 4-year-old daughter.
The Hawaiʻi-based Filipina fashion designer holds a cloth from Indigenous weavers in the Philippines. Some fabrics are made of raw materials like cotton, abaca (a native plant of the Philippines), fiber and pineapple.
The art form of weaving textiles dating back to the 13th century is seeing a resurgence among designers.
Textiles are significant in cultures across the Philippines' more than 7,000 islands. The vibrant, geometric patterns symbolize an island's region, such as the mountains and rivers. The textile that Querian sews signifies a portal to their ancestors.
Querian, who has been creating clothes since 2017, established her brand Daily Malong now known as Elle Karayan — with the motto "Indigenous is the future."
She hopes to educate Filipinos in the diaspora about their culture through clothing.
"At the time, I started thinking about how do you really represent 7,000 islands with just Filipinia, or Manny Pacquiao or a Jeepney?" she said. "Those are very familiar things, and a lot of those things are already washed out of context."
Querian grew up in Manila in a Catholic family. When she moved to the U.S., she felt detached from her culture.
"I realized that looking at America and looking at the diasporic community, it's very Manila-centric. How we would think about Filipino culture because it's not a monolithic culture," she said.
"So what would be a good entry point for a Filipino American story or a narrative because all of us here, especially those born and raised here, their parents assimilate? So there's this narrative where I'm looking for who I am, or I'm looking for my lineage and where I came from," she continued.
Querian's designs are contemporized. Her inspiration comes from her research and trips to the Philippines, such as Mindanao and Kalinga. She said she works with weavers by including more cotton into the fabric so it is wearable and accessible.
While Querian aims to keep her clothing Indigenous, her recent collection included Filipinianas, formal dresses with exaggerated sleeves.
But she incorporated T'boli patterns made of abaca. T'boli, an ethnic group native to South Cotabato in southern Mindanao in the Philippines, weave textiles inspired by their dreams.
Querian stuck with calling it the butterfly sleeves due to its introduction from the Spanish colonial era in the Philippines. Then-first lady Imelda Marcos of the Philippines popularized the Filipiniana in the 1960s.
She noted that the sleeves had another function in Filipino history.
"There's a lot to unravel, decolonize, and re-indigenize around that because a lot of people who fought the atrocities around the Spanish colonization have used those sleeves as a functional piece for them to hide their knives so they can fight the Spaniards behind their backs."
Querian's work has picked up national and even international recognition. Her clothing line has been featured in New York and Paris fashion weeks. She was also featured in Vogue Magazine.
She also collaborated with local social media influencers Bretman Rock and Princess Mae, who are siblings and Filipinos in Hawaiʻi. They've sported her clothing and garnered millions of likes on Instagram.
She first worked with Princess Mae in 2021 for her feature in Pinay Magazine Billboard shoot.
Querian recalled the Filipina social media influencer wanting a Filipiniana, but at the time, she didn't incorporate the butterfly sleeves in her collection.
Princess Mae wore Indigenous textiles on a billboard in Los Angeles, including a beaded necklace. Bretman Rock also wore Querian's modern bahag on Instagram.
"Influencers like that who speak about their own identity in a very different light are inspiring for a lot of Gen Zs," Querian said.
Querian said her job feels complete when the younger generation is interested in learning more about textiles.
"It makes me feel better about what future my daughter will have," she said. "Ten years from now, if her elders are going to be people who can speak about their textiles, who can stand up and speak proudly about their culture, she's in good hands."
