Weaving the Fabric of Faith

Haute couture designer-turned-monk now designs liturgical vestments made of indigenous materials

He shocked Manila’s high society in 1990 when he gave up his flourishing career as a fashion designer to embrace the simple life of a Benedictine monk. Gang (monicker for Edgardo Ramon) Gomez was a popular haute couture designer who catered to Manila’s fashion elite during the seventies. Known for his classic lines as reflected in his wedding ensembles and debutantes’ gowns, his outfits featured his exclusive hand-embroidery on rich fabrics such as silk, velvet and tafetta. His extensive use of indigenous materials such as jusi and pina were also very vogue for formal wear.

Gang Gomez entered the fashion scene in 1971 after studying at Mayer School of Fashion Design in New York and training with the NY Fashion Designers’ Foundation where he won the 1970 Award for Creative Designs. He returned to Manila in 1971 where he set up shop at Remedios Circle, known as Designers’ Row where the country’s top fashion designers congregated and did business.

Manila’s fashion world was jolted in 1990 when he closed his shop and joined the Monastery of the Transfiguration in Malaybalay, Bukidnon. It is where he has spent the last ten years of his life in simplicity, prayer and work.

In 1996, Gomez, now known as Dom Martin de Jesus Gomez, OSB, was asked to lecture on materials and designs for liturgical vestments in Rome. The request apparently re-awakened the designer in him and after some initial research, he was inspired to design again. Only this time, the clothes would be for the celebration of the Mass, utilizing fabrics woven by the indigenous tribes of the Philippines.

Recently, his works went on exhibit in several venues in Los Angeles. Known as the Liturgical Vestments Collection Exhibit, it is a unique fifty-piece collection of church vestments using indigenous materials like wild banana and pineapple fibers, hand-woven and hand-embroidered (and in some cases, hand-dyed) by twenty ethnolinguistic tribes in the Philippines. Traditional weaving designs and symbols of the different tribes were respected and incorporated whenever possible and appropriate, which yielded a unique collection that is aesthetically beautiful, culturally rich and liturgically correct.

Dom Martin resurrects his art and craft with the Liturgical Vestments Collection Exhibit. The influence of his contemplative life is quite evident in the new design elements he currently uses. God as weaver is imaged as well as experienced in the making of this collection, and Dom Martin was able to to weave the two patterns of his life into one fabric of faith.

With two years of research work going into the preparation for the Exhibit, Dom Martin Gomez' research on liturgical vestments took him as far as the Trappist Monastery in Massachusetts, the Metropolitan Museum in New York, and the Victoria and Albert Museum in London. His research with the cultural minority tribes of the Philippines led him to twenty centers which had maintained their tribal weaving traditions throughout the over 7,000 islands of the country.

Breaking through the native weavers' resistance to strangers, change and innovation, Dom Martin was able to draw out the best of the native artists by bringing together the different tribes' technologies of weaving, embroidery, and thread pulling techniques (cross technology) into the making of the individual pieces.

Filipino weaving is unique to every region, incorporating different designs and colors according to a tribe’s culture and beliefs. Some tribes are Christian, others Muslim but most are animists who believe the world is inhabited by spirits and souls. For the weavers, the precious cloth they create has significant meaning in their tribal customs and rituals. They see the fabrics they weave as precious parts of their culture.

The exhibit inspires both reverence and awe at the hours of patient and artistic labor that went into each garment. It affirmed the monk's sensitivity and respect for the cultural wealth, humble beauty, and dignity of the Philippine cultural minority tribes through their artistry and workmanship. Aside from creating a vestment collection, Dom Martin is also seeking to promote the weavers and create a greater demand for their cloth. Because demand for indigenous weaves is minimal, children are reluctant to follow in their parents’ footsteps, opting for jobs in the cities. It is too soon to tell if Dom Martin’s efforts will be successful.

The first of its kind, the exhibit was at the Ayala Museum in Manila for six months; and, after the two-month exhibit at the Museum of Cultural Diversity in California, it is looking for new venues in the United States where the Collection could again be seen by the public. The Collection will remain in North America until 2000.

For more information, call Linda Maria Nietes at 310/514-9139 or Connie Valderrama, Exhibit Director at 310/ 808-0986.