High Fashion in the Highlands: Panagbenga’s Season of Style

Each spring, the mountain city of Baguio City transforms beneath the spectacle of Panagbenga Festival. The season is known for its floats layered with sunflowers, for streets thick with visitors, and for the annual celebration of flowers after the cool quiet of the highland winter. Yet beyond the parades and pageantry, another form of blooming unfolds. It is brash, provocative, but no less radiant.

Do not be mislead into thinking that fashion is bandwagoning on Panagbenga crowds, its inspirations are rooted deep in the mountain soil.

Across February and March, four fashion events brought designers, models, cultural advocates and audiences together in spaces that ranged from hotel ballrooms to shopping mall atriums. Each show presented a different vision of Cordilleran aesthetics. Some were rooted in heritage weaving traditions. Others embraced couture spectacle. All of them shared a common premise: that fashion in the highlands is not an imitation of global trends, but a living dialogue between tradition, identity and contemporary design.

Blooming Without End

Held on 21 February at the RNJ Hotel, Blooming Without End set the tone for the season with a runway production where florals framed every silhouette as they took to the stage. Organized under the direction of National Director Julian De Guzman and produced by La Patria De Las Flores in collaboration with Paolo Core and Vortex Baguio, the event gathered several distinguished fashion houses for a single evening of haute couture spectacle.

Designs from Ruth’s Closet, Monarchy Couture and the Philippine Costume Museum moved down the runway like wearable art of fabric and form. The garments carried  filipino kultura blended with echoes of the  migrant history, yet they were presented with the immediacy of contemporary couture.

The show also featured prominent figures from the pageant world, including Mister Homeland Philippines World Ambassador 2025 Villamor II Dela Cruz and Miss Homeland Philippines Crown Ambassador 2024 Kairelle Dela Rama. Their presence added a ceremonial polish to an evening that already possessed the atmosphere of celebration.

Vortex Models are sourced via Vesta School For Modelling in Baguio City, their students range from 5 years old to over 50

If the Panagbenga season is about abundance, Blooming Without End captured that abundance in motion.

photos by J Inman

Blooming Weaves

While some shows leaned toward spectacle, Blooming Weaves turned attention toward the deeper foundations of Cordilleran fashion. Hosted at SM City Baguio, the exhibit opened on 8 February and culminated in a runway presentation on 23 March at the mall’s concourse.

The runaway timing coincided with Ibaloy Day, and the evening began with a resonant bendian dance led by the Gawis Culture and Arts Ensemble. The rhythm of gongs and collective movement reminded the audience that fashion here is inseparable from living cultural practice. The event concluded with a community dance that invited the audience to step briefly into that continuum.

Designers featured in the showcase included Julienne Paran of the Julienne Paran Design Studio and head of the Fashion Designers Alliance Cordillera, Marissa Mabablot Bomogao of MB Collections, Ginalyn Brown Tayag of Tapis and Baag, and Raine Macaraeg of RM Bridal Couture and Events. Their work was joined by creations from Badbado Benguet, Febylyn Finnek, Vernon Laranang of NON, Mary Grace Glorydelle Sayo Zapanta of ALtheaZ PH, Andrew Visaya Jr, and Miriam Nadugo.

Special attention needs to be brought to the outfits of Mary Grace Lee of Badbado, whose inspiration came not through the bright spring flowers that boys give to their valentines, but the dry floral arrangements that quietly last forever.

Another designer to watch is Febelyn Finnek, 2nd year design student whose textiles celebrated the other February cultural touchstones in Baguio City, Valentines Day and Lunar New Year

Produced by De Stijl Image Reinvented in partnership with SM City Baguio, the exhibition treated woven textiles not as relics but as materials that continue to evolve. The garments demonstrated that Cordilleran weaving traditions are not static heritage objects. They are adaptable languages capable of speaking to modern fashion audiences.

Photos by J.P.A CARINO

Habing Katutubo

If Blooming Weaves explored heritage through textile, Habing Katutubo expanded the conversation into performance. Held in the Diamond Ballroom of Hotel Supreme, the event promised “a powerful stage where fashion, culture and heritage come alive,” and delivered precisely that.

The evening also marked the launch of Edafuan and introduced its first cover model, Islay Erika Bomogao, placing indigenous narratives at the centre of the program. Islay is famous as Baguio’s World Champion Muay Thai fighter, but on the cover of Edafuan, Bomogao represents her cultural pride in a manner far softer but no less powerful than her side kick to the face. 

Designers included Julie Vergara of Julie’s Creations, Mary Grace Lee of Badbado, Mariz Bomogao of Tupi en Dopot and MB Collections, Maila Alog of M.A Woven Designs as head designer, and associate designer Ricmar Agas of Ibadum. Their work unfolded through themed segments such as Cordiversal: The One Size Fits All, Cordi Couple: Pormang Pinoy, Cordistreet: Dark Sibol Otentik, and Cordichic and Cordihunk: Aksent.

Dance performances from Baguio J Krayonz added contemporary kinetic energy, while traditional segments such as the indigenous wear presentation and the Cordillera Unity performance by Timpuyog Di Gangsa reasserted the cultural grounding of the show. The closing bendian once again returned the audience to communal movement and shared heritage. The event was choreography, narrative and cultural declaration presented through fashion.

photos by J Inman

The Highland Couture Fashion Show

The final event unfolded as part of the Highland Wedding Expo at SM City Baguio. While wedding suppliers filled the atrium, the Sunset Terrace amphitheater became a luminous stage for the Highland Couture Fashion Show.

Below, Session Road churned with the crowds of the Panagbenga celebrations. Above them, on the terrace, Cordilleran designers presented garments shaped by wedding ritual, romance and ceremony.

Produced by De Stijl Image Reinvented and Badbado Creative Lab, the show featured designers including Avelyn Calag, Julienne Paran, Marissa Mabablot Bomogao, Febylyn Finnek, Vernon Laranang of NON, Raine Macaraeg, Mary Grace Glorydelle Sayo Zapanta, Andrew Visaya Jr and Miriam Nadugo. Ginalyn Brown Tayag’s work from Tapis and Baag added yet another interpretation of heritage textiles transformed into formalwear.

If weddings represent the promise of continuity, then the setting was apt. High above the city, with the evening air cooling the terraces, the runway felt suspended between tradition and aspiration.

photo by J Inman

A City Where Fashion Blooms

Taken together, these four events reveal something essential about fashion in Baguio. The city’s designers are not crafting flower themed costumes for a single event, instead they are engaged in a continuousl practice that weaves together identity, craft, ceremony and modern design.

In a season devoted to flowers, the metaphor feels unavoidable. Textiles bloom on the runway just as vividly as orchids bloom on Panagbenga floats.

But unlike flowers, these creations do not fade when the festival ends. They continue to evolve in studios, weaving houses and ateliers across the Cordillera, preparing quietly for the next season when fashion in the highlands will bloom once more.