Part of multimedia artist Lee Caces’ bucket list is to collaborate with Vans, a brand he has been using from way back. A pair of Vans is his go to companion for traveling or cruising the city.
Cases gets to explore new spaces for which he can think about his art and how to improve it in preparation for the Vans collaboration.
He conceptualized connecting Filipino mythology to the city and Vans chose the Bakunawa.
The Bakunawa artwork at first glance gives the impression of people battling in the night, under the moon, then finally opens the mind to people frozen in action– surfers, BMX riders, skaters– fighting for the light.
“It is an honor to work with Vans because they trusted me to play around and experiment with a lot of things. And I am happy because I get to show that being different, or creating different, is a good way to represent people who are also different,” said Cases.
Tina Ortiz, Vans Philippines chief executive officer, said the brand is celebrating a newly relocated store on the second level of Glorietta 3 in Makati City. And for this project they are opening up “a new format that we have introduced in the Philippines, and this time it involves local collaboration.”
The brand brought in a local artist to help design the new store. “We have had a lot of collaborations with other things because we have a custom culture,” she added.
This is the first time that the popular brand is working with a local artist to present the concept of the brand and the store. In choosing the artist, “we basically looked at a lot of artists in the Philippines, narrowed down the list, and then worked with our principal closely, and we felt that he (Caces) represented the brand very closely,” she explained.
“We have always been into somebody who is into creative voyaging, creative expression, and very authentic,” Ortiz also said. “He personified the brand pillars and the brand DNA.”
“We will see if we could keep using the same design or move on to a different one because we would like to give an opportunity for various artists as we move forward,” she added.
The brand has also launched the One Piece collection, something big in anime having the longest-running fan base that is huge by many standards. It is very iconic, she mentioned.
Vans takes pride in their customers who identify themselves with what the brand stands for and which represents something that carried them through in comfort every day in their younger years and even beyond, she said.
