Want to support local products? Check out the 2016 HABI Market Fair that will be held on October 14 to 16, at the Glorietta Activity Center, Glorietta 2, Makati City
This year’s HABI Market Fair will feature traditional Philippine weaves that exhibit the development and growth of locally woven products while showcasing the innate creativity of the Filipino people. The market fair’s main goal is to promote the preservation and further development of the craft of weaving through entrepreneurship and synergy.
These unique and varied indigenous products range from the inabel from Northern Luzon, silk from Negros, the Cordillera fabrics of Sagada, Banawe, Kalinga, piña from Aklan and Palawan, all the way to the colorful weaves from all over Mindanao.
The annual HABI Market Fair will highlight a wide range of woven products while allowing weavers and vendors to exchange ideas on marketing, creative design and modern use of the fabrics with traders, designers and other interested parties. Hopefully, this intersection of minds will encourage weavers all over the country to upgrade, update, and refine their products in order to etch out a bigger space for Filipino brands globally.
The Philippine Textile Research Institute has helped a number of weavers and textile industry partners create special threads combining pineapple with silk, and cotton with pineapple. Other projects in the works experiment with the use of natural blends, mixing cotton with materials such as bagasse, a fibrous by-product of the sugar industry. These efforts open niches for local weavers in global fashion trends and connect weavers to organizations who can provide technical help.
HABI also supports the trend of returning to pure cotton in weaving. Although the cotton plant itself is currently endemic, this initiative may also promote the planting of cotton so that this may provide weavers the material to create masterpieces form natural fibres. This fair is not only a fun way to support local products, but this will inevitbaly aide in bringing Philippine textile and artistry into global view.
The 2016 Habi Market Fair will be held on October 14 to 16, at the Glorietta Activity Center, Glorietta 2, Makati City