Local artisanal brand Uswag Artesano launches a new holiday collection, ‘Wicker Wander’.

Images provided by Uswag Artesano
August 23, 2023

Since debuting last summer at the ArteFino Resort Pop Up, USWAG ARTESANO has continued to explore new ways of expressing the “Sacred Ordinary” of Leyte’s artisans. As a lifestyle brand built on heritage, history, and culture, everyday stories of the province’s coastal towns influence the label’s creative process. Basketry, for instance, has played an important role in the region’s way of life–both in the past and at present. For decades, they’ve been used by artisans, most of whom are primarily fisherfolk and farmers, for gathering, storing, and transporting their goods. This was the key inspiration behind USWAG ARTESANO’s new holiday collection, Wicker Wander.

BASKETS IN OUR DNA: A Backstory

Founder of USWAG ARTESANO, Anna Veloso-Tuazon quotes a paper published by Professor Dr. Eric B. Zerrudo and Beverly Bautista for the British Council (entitled BASKETS HAVE NO AUTHORS... Scoping Research Project on Uswag Artesano: Advancing the Creativity and Adaptability of Basket Weavers in the 3rd District of Leyte): “Woven baskets are ubiquitous vessels of cultures. A simple basket embraces nature and culture, the tangible and the intangible, the function and the ornamentation, the elite and the ordinary. Basket narratives touch on environment, plant sources, climate change, master weavers, family lineage, tradition, belief system, rituals, preparation, design, technique, experimentation, function, place marking, identity building, meaning making, innovation, marketing and many more iterations of the basket in the everyday. Basket weavers extend their histories and impress their geniuses with their creations.”

In June 2022, a Design Residency program for artisans in the 3rd District of Leyte resulted in the creation of basketry art installations. This would later become the take off point for USWAG ARTESANO’s Wicker Wander. “For the ArteFino Festival, we intend to create a capsule collection inspired by these basketry art installations,” says Anna. The main idea, she adds, was to bring a piece of the province’s Sacred Ordinary to more homes and wardrobes, resulting in a collection of re-imagined basket bags, banig carry-alls, woven lamps, and accessories that showcase the extraordinary range and dexterity of Leyte’s artisans. More than a re-interpretation, this season’s collection underlines the province’s rich basket weaving traditions.

CURRENT STATE OF WICKER: About The Collection

Basket bags (also a nod to style icon Jane Birkin) for the collection are woven in various patterns as well as sizes ranging from mini to maxi. They are refined and finished with fine leather trimmings. Signature USWAG ARTESANO blooms, which were first seen in the maiden collection, are lined with suede in fall’s deep hues. Satchels with leather panels, from parent company Abre Linea, were also embellished with USWAG ARTESANO’s woven blooms.

Statement accessories and home decor, including a pair of earrings inspired by the Rawis Watchtower ruins in Leyte, are other key pieces in the collection that capture enduring landscapes of the province. Anna furthers, “Other pieces from the collection will include sling blobs inspired by Villaba’s Mt.

Buga-buga and Buga-buga blojects of the Design Center of the Philippines (DCP). [We will also showcase] Lubi vessels, which DCP fashioned after coconuts. [These vessels were] designed during their residency in Calubian.”

THE MANY PHASES OF OUR SACRED ORDINARY

Ideas and designs at USWAG ARTESANO are hatched organically, honoring the hands that create. Case in point: the Wicker Wander collection. The team plucked out significant touch points from an on-going effort to enrich livelihoods for Leyte’s artisans (spearheaded by its parent company, Abre Linea). From exploratory design residency programs, art installations of basketry were born. These were then re-scaled, re-fined, and polished by artisans of the USWAG ARTESANO collective.

Wicker Wander by USWAG ARTESANO echoes how the Sacred Ordinary of Leyte’s artisans continues to grow, evolve and take on new forms. Rooted in the ancient art of basketry, contemporary pieces for both fashion and home are created. They remain vessels of culture that are elevated and evolved to inspire creativity and suit modern lifestyles.

Anna closes, “Our artisans are the repositories of traditional ways of weaving, crafting, repurposing, and reinventing. Their hands are poetry in motion when they re-imagine and transform the mundane into ritual. Shapes and forms draw from Leyte’s heritage, history, and culture. They are refined and elevated to echo the brand’s reverence for the Eastern Visayas region’s way of life.”

Wicker Wander will launch at the ArteFino Festival at The Fifth at Rockwell. The trade fair will run from August 24 to 27. For more information, follow us on Instagram @uswagartesano.