The Philippines’ most famous garment, the Barong Tagalog is a wardrobe staple — especially among Filipino men. Made from delicate piña fabric (pineapple leaf) or jusi material (originally made with banana silk, but now jusi is a polyester and silk blend), it seems like such a simple-looking shirt. But take a closer look and you can see its intricacy and craftsmanship in all its embroidered glory. It’s literally a wearable piece of art as we’ve mentioned in The Rich and Interesting History of the Barong Tagalog blog post. The beautiful thing about it is it’s so uniquely Filipino, but get this — historically and traditionally, most of the embroidery on the Barong Tagalog is and has been inspired by European or American designs. One of the most famous variations of the Barong Tagalog in 1935, called the “Commonwealth Barong Tagalog,” literally featured the U.S. flag alongside the Philippine Commonwealth flag. You can’t get more American than that. At VINTA, we’ve always been obsessed with the barong look, including the old-fashioned processes and design transfer techniques used to create the barong tagalog, dating back from the 1920s — age-old methods we still use today at our VINTA atelier. But us in our Rebel Filipiniana ways, we wanted to turn that “uniquely Filipino” garment up a notch with actual, truly Filipino embroidery, designed by Filipinos to empower Filipinos.