Through her local brand Amarie, 'fashionpreneur' Anne Marie Saguil promotes traditional embroidery while providing jobs and protecting the environment
For someone who has a team of about 40 artisans under her tutelage, working hard to keep the business afloat is not an easy task. But for the fashion designer and entrepreneur Anne Marie Saguil, this challenge keeps her going.
As a young girl, she would have her mother’s dressmaker make clothes for her, clothes she designed herself. This innate interest in fashion drove her to complete a degree in textiles and clothing at the University of California, Davis and in fashion design at the Fashion Institute of Design and Merchandising in San Francisco. After graduation, Saguil worked in the New York fashion scene for years until she returned home to establish her own fashion brand, Mosaic. Later, she started to appreciate the craftsmanship of local embroidery, giving birth to her brand, Amarie.
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I am fascinated by: the embroidery of the barong Tagalog. After ten years of a successful retail business, I decided I wanted to explore a different avenue of fashion, to design in a more thoughtful and slow-paced manner. When I conceptualised Amarie, I decided to put emphasis on the beautiful embroidery craft that Filipino artisans offer, which I felt was not celebrated enough at the time.
I felt it was important to our identity and culture that the craft of Filipino embroidery be more visible in our everyday lives. It was already the norm for men in the office barong Tagalog, but women preferred more modern silhouettes, fabrics and colours. I thought the most natural thing to do was to create a barong-inspired dress in a fresher and more vibrant colour palette, using denim for a modern yet functional casual edge. That barong-inspired dress in various iterations has since become a sought-after iconic staple for the Amarie brand.