Paul Cabral’s APEC style for world leaders

(Updated 5:30 p.m.) Designer Paul Cabral, who was commissioned to design the official outfits to be worn by the world leaders attending the APEC Economic Leaders' Meeting (AELM) at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit in the Philippines next week, on Tuesday shared four of the looks he has created.

Each shirt has embroidered designs that pertain to the country or culture of the leader wearing it.

"Each economy will have their own design. What we did is that we research kung anumang arts, crafts, culture ng bawat country... Ito talaga very personal," said Cabral.

Russian President Vladimir Putin's barong Tagalog has a design based on magnified details of Palace Square, the central city square of the city of St. Petersburg.

Chinese President Xi Jinping's barong Tagalog has bamboo detail, while Taiwanese Preident Ma Ying-Jeou's barong features maple leaves during autumn.

The design on President Benigno Aquino III's barong Tagalog is based on the heritage houses of Las Casas Filipinas de Acuzar in Bagac, Bataan, which was the site of two APEC events in June. Cabral also added the image of Aquino's signature ribbon pin to the outfit.

Research and hard work

Cabral created over 30 designs for the event. He is expecting the economic leaders and the spouses to wear his creations during the special dinner hosted by President Aquino  on November 18.

While the 19 male heads of state attending the event will be wearing barong Tagalog, the two female heads of state will be wearing piña jackets over white outfits. The male leaders' wives will also be wearing piña jackets, but over black outfits.

"The moment were were advised that we won the bidding for this project, we started doing the research already. We had to research their physical appearance, the height, whatever available information there is on the internet," Cabral said.

All of the barong Tagalog and piña jackets were handcrafted by Cabral's weavers in Laguna.

Cabral said that the entire project took his team around four months to complete. He added that each barong Tagalog and piña jacket took them three weeks to a month to finish.

In fact, he had to close his shop for a month to prepare and focus on the APEC event. But this was not a problem for the designer.

"Anuman iyong sinakripisiyo ko na isang buwan na hindi ako tumatanggap o wala kaming kita, it's okay," he said.

Some of the outfits have already been sent to the leaders who will be wearing them.

He said that being tasked to create the outfits for the world leaders was a source of pride and dignity to him and his team as Filipinos.

"As a designer... to be able to see your creations being worn by the different heads of [state], parang, what else can you ask for? It cannot go bigger than this," Cabral said.

"Parang this is your greatest fulfillment eh, na makita mo iyong creations mo suot suot ng iba't ibang economic leaders," he added. — BM, GMA News