Belista, Derek

Belista, Derek
@dere_kd / @houseof_rockwell

Queer Purgatorio, mainly inspired by Dante Alighieri’s Divine Comedy, depicts the complex relationship of the Filipino LGBTQIA+ with religion. This collection shows a personal journey of one’s experience regaining one’s spirituality. It takes you on a journey of Conformity. Questioning, Rage, Losing, and Regaining one’s belief in God or of any higher being. It tackles the ostracization of the Filipino LGBTQIA+ within their religion and its effects on losing one’s sense of self. This collection highlights the importance of family acceptance, challenging conservative teachings of the church, and the overall balance of sexuality and spirituality for one’s completion and fulfillment of their whole being.

I am Derek Gerard Belista a 3rd year Fashion Design and Merchandising student of De La Salle- College of Saint Benilde, and I am a fashion designer with a niche drag style of fashion that embraces personality and empowering individuals with bold structures, avant-garde silhouettes, and meticulous handwork and craftsmanship that evokes an astonishing feeling to its audiences. The pinnacle of my work caters from individuals who belong in stage performances, red carpets, ceremonial, and large crowd events, to individuals that enjoys a statement piece, empowering their own confidence living their everyday life.

One of the gruesome challenges I faced in creating the collection was making the feathers perfect. It went through a lot of changes, from using different fabrics, using unconventional materials, and even different fabric treatments to perfect its lightweight, metallic, yet realistic look of a feather, while keeping the collection financially feasible. I remembered trying to get my feathers laser cut for potential mass production, however, it just cost too much for only an eigths of the feathers I needed for the collection. This setback put me on a traditional path of cutting, creasing, soldering the details of each individual feathers, and hand stitching each of the feathers to the base of my pieces. I want to showcase that exact hardwork and craftmanship of a couture designer through my collection, because the blood, sweat, and tears put in these pieces are what makes them truly valuable aside from its subjective beauty.