Spun From a Belief in God’s Design

The subdued Filipino monk in the flowing black robe suddenly becomes animated. He’s talking about clothes.

He has caused a stir in religious circles by designing a striking collection of Roman Catholic vestments, those pieces of liturgical clothing worn by priests. There are 50 vestments, all hand-woven by indigenous people of the Philippines and each with its own origin.

But behind the vestments lies another story of how a man at the height of his fame as a fashion designer turned to God, then to solitude, and finally found a way to use his gifts as a clothier to serve his maker.

He was once known as Gang Gomez, one of the hottest fashion designers to emerge from the Philippines. Noted for the crisp lines on his Filipino-inspired gowns, the couture designer was all the rage in his homeland during the 1980s. He eventually opened a shop on Manila’s fashion row--Remedios Circle--and gained notoriety by clothing the richest, most powerful women of the Philippines, including former first lady Imelda Marcos.

Then, in 1990, after 17 years in the business, Gomez shocked the fashion world when he closed his design house to become a monk. For most of his life, Gomez felt something was missing. Only after abandoning his family, friends and a career he loved did he find that his true identity lay in a Benedictine monastery, under a black-hooded robe, close to God.

Almost seven years passed when, in 1996, the monk now known as Dom Martin de Jesus Gomez was asked to lecture on materials and designs for liturgical vestments in Rome. That request reawakened the designer who had died within him and, after some initial research, he was inspired to design again. Only this time, the collection would use fabrics woven by the indigenous people of the Philippines. This time, the clothes would be for the celebration of the Mass.

Work on the collection took him on a journey through the uplands of the eastern Cordilleras mountains to the rain forests and mountains of southern Mindanao, where fibers are spun from the trunks of banana and pineapple trees, and tribes guard their fabrics as if they were gold.

His collection of vestments was unveiled at an unusual fashion show in Manila in 1998, with priests walking the runway in the garments. The religious wear arrived in Southern California on March 4, through cooperation with the Los Angeles Archdiocese Office of Filipino Ministry, and was shown at the annual Religious Education Congress in Anaheim last month before being transferred to the little-known Museum of Cultural Diversity in Carson. It will be displayed until May 28.

After the exhibition closes, it is uncertain where the vestments will go next. The collection may go to other museums in the United States, but, eventually, the garments will be returned to the Philippines to be used by clergy.

The collection includes a magnificent variety of stoles, the long strips of cloth worn around the neck; chasubles, sleeveless outer garments; and copes, cape-like coverings. Of the vestments, several stand out. One rose-colored chasuble made from Yakan fabric from Basilan Island also has a stole with threads of seven colors, a Muslim influence. A cream-colored chasuble highlights the intricate patterns of T’nalak cloth. The woven banana cloth, which looks like a fine linen at a distance, is made by T’boli, an indigenous people in the lake-studded Tiruray highlands of Cotabato.

“I’m proud of this one,” he said. “But put that word in quotes. I’m a monk; we’re not supposed to be proud.”

For Gomez, who was in Southern California for the exhibition’s opening, the collection remains a grand feat. On April 18, the day before he left Los Angeles to return to the Monastery of the Transfiguration in the Philippines, he said the collection had revealed a way for him to weave the two patterns of his life into one fabric of faith.

“I knew exactly what I was doing: I was offering something to God. At some point, it dawned on me. What I had given up years before, the Lord has now given it back to me,” Gomez said.

When some of his old friends hear him talk like that, they still can’t believe it’s Gang--a nickname that came not as a trendy fashion label, but from younger cousins who had trouble pronouncing his given name, Edgardo.

A Quest for the Spiritual

While many associates were stunned when he left for the monastery, Gomez said the idea had been inside him for a long time. After he received the annual design award from the New York Fashion Designers Foundation in 1971, he visited a seminary in New Hyde Park, N.Y. His parents didn’t like the idea of his pursuing a religious life and urged him not to let his gifts as a designer go to waste.

Still, a spiritual hunger kept gnawing at his soul until he couldn’t bear it any longer. When asked about the difficult decision to leave fashion and enter the monastery, Gomez hesitated a moment, trying to hold back his tears. Then he smiled and explained:

“It was not painful leaving design. It was painful leaving my family, leaving my friends,” he said softly. “Part of me was thinking that maybe this was a midlife crisis or something.

“When I visited the monastery [in the Philippines], I knew it was right. I wanted more out of life and I wasn’t getting it. You know, they say every monk is searching for God. I guess that’s what I was doing. Then I found him and it was liberating.”

His transition to religious life began in 1990 as Gomez started a period of secluded prayer, gradually reducing his contact with the outside world. On Dec. 8, 1996, he took his solemn profession, the final vow taken by monks. Shortly afterward, the director of the Liturgical Institute in Rome asked him to present a lecture on vestment materials to some clergymen.

In his research, Gomez came upon a provision in Vatican II documents that encouraged use of local and indigenous materials for vestments. With the Second Vatican Council of 1962, liberalizing reforms were put in place to update the church. Even so, Gomez realized that the vestments used by Catholic clergy in the Philippines were largely being made of opulent, imported fabrics from Europe, not suited to the country’s tropical climate.

Spanish colonialists arrived in the Philippines in 1565 and established the first permanent settlement in Cebu, naming the region for their king, Philip II. Soon after, missionaries and friars marched alongside soldiers, forcibly converting natives to Catholicism. The Philippines remained under Spanish rule for 333 years and still is the only predominantly Catholic country in Southeast Asia.

“When the Spaniards came, they imposed their religion and their own style of worship on us. They dressed in Italian satins, tassels, French brocades. Somehow, we got used to that. I was curious as to why,” he said.

“How come we never went and grabbed the opportunity to produce our own vestments? We have common liturgy [with Europe] but it doesn’t mean we have to use the same things. We should be using fabrics that are light and cool. Maybe I was being a bit nationalistic,” Gomez said with a laugh. “At that time, we were preparing for celebrations marking 100 years of independence. I thought we should also be liberated from the bondage of using Western materials.”

It was a thought that may have struck other church leaders throughout Latin America and Asia on those hot, muggy Sundays at church. But few strides have been made in adapting vestments, church leaders said, because none of the clergy has had as much design experience as Gomez.

The international vestment business is a fragmented market. The National Church Goods Assn. in Milford, Pa., estimates it is worth about $10 million a year and growing, as more denominations, including Episcopalians, Lutherans and United Methodists, use more religious garb.

As a designer, Gomez had used indigenous fabrics extensively as his signature style. Often he used abaca, a fiber that comes from the trunk of the banana tree, or jusi, a Filipino silk. For the vestment collection, he wanted to work personally with the indigenous people, using their fabrics, methods of weaving and embroidery to create something truly Filipino.

Hoping to Promote Tribal Weavers

Aside from creating a vestment collection, Gomez also wanted to promote the weavers and create a greater demand for their goods. Because demand for indigenous weaves is poor, Gomez said children have been reluctant to follow in their parents’ footsteps, opting for jobs in the cities. He said it is too soon to tell if his efforts will be successful, but since the collection’s completion, there has been talk about starting a vestment business at his monastery. Gomez is also writing a book on indigenous fabrics and the vestment collection.

Gomez identified 20 tribes on the more than 7,100 islands and islets of the Philippines with the help of the Katutubong Filipino Foundation, a nonprofit group founded by former first lady Amelita Ramos to support indigenous people. His superiors at the monastery permitted Gomez a maximum of 10 days with each tribe. The entire project, including preliminary research and travel from tribe to tribe, was completed in two years, ending in 1998.

Filipino weaving is unique from region to 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.

“The tribes have had very little contact with the outside world. They see the fabrics they weave as precious parts of their culture. As a matter of fact, the reason they live so deep in the jungle is that they were avoiding the Spanish, to protect that culture. So because of this, there was apprehension when they saw me,” Gomez said.

On many trips, half of his time was spent trying to convince the tribes that he would not take advantage of them or steal their intricate embroidery secrets for profit. (The church worked out a financial arrangement to purchase fabric from the tribes, but Gomez said he could not disclose the details.)

In trying to meet church restrictions, he said he also had difficulty persuading the weavers, or bordadoras, to change the yarns or threads they had used in their looms for centuries or to mix fabrics with those of other tribes. In some regions, he urged tribes that had been unsuccessful with their fabrics to experiment, explaining to them that progress does not kill one’s culture.

Another challenge involved adapting weaves and design patterns to conform to Catholic tradition. The basic form of ceremonial vestments--in particular the chasuble and the stole--are dictated by ecclesiastical requirements.

In some instances, Gomez found he could not use the indigenous fabric. The Itneg tribe from the northern Philippines, for example, puts images of frogs in their weaves as a symbol of fertility and were not willing to change the motif. For Gomez to use that on a vestment was out of the question.

“How would you explain to the cardinal that his vestment is full of a bunch of frogs? I saw that and said, ‘I don’t think so,’ ” Gomez said.

Colors, which are dictated by the liturgical calendar, posed an additional problem. The widespread use of natural plant dyes is apparent in the brilliant hues of Filipino native fabrics. Blues are extracted from indigo plants. Blacks come from burying the yarn and kneading it in mud. Whites arise after the yarn is bathed in rice water, and reds bleed naturally from the barks of trees. In some cases, those methods were problematic for Gomez.

One majestic gold vestment in the collection, hand-woven from pineapple cloth or pina, was dyed in yellow ginger. After the first rinse, it was too orange. Gomez had to explain there was just no way that the color orange was suitable for the liturgy.

“As a former designer, I was a bit demanding. But, you have to understand the purpose. I didn’t design these clothes for a person. I designed them for a celebration of the highest form. When people go to banquets, they dress up in their best. In the Eucharist, you meet Christ himself. What greater event could there be?”

The Museum of Cultural Diversity is in the South Bay Pavilion, near Ikea, 20700 S. Avalon Blvd., Suite 870, Carson, CA 90746. Call (562) 595-9909.