They say imitation is the highest form of flattery. Highly fascinated with celebrity pop culture, designer RJ Santos can be a stan himself—but we won’t catch the creator of Randolf obsessing over famous personalities; instead, we find his latest collection reverberating a recognizable beat with models coolly strutting down the catwalk caught on video. Looks familiar?
Nothing but good vibes on RandolfTV:
Photos — Zaldine Alvaro
Before the internet disrupted our viewing pleasure, there were cult TV favorites that catered to us 90s kids. We looked into magazines and streamlined sources that fed us the vibrant, pop imagery we excitedly craved for. We didn’t have a say or choice to what we saw, nor could we skip or fast forward to the next vid-bit. Consuming media meant sinking our teeth entirely into whatever rolled out on our boxes. Bouncing off the walls of these finite channels, there was only so much to tune into, but our limited options held an advantage: it granted us the satisfaction of experiencing things whole—integral. We didn’t have thousands of flavors to choose from, but we sure did lick each ingredient from our plates clean. Feeding ourselves with culture didn’t mean bits and pieces from an appetizer followed by a bite of dessert; it meant to dine the entire course.
We grew up watching channels named after whatever basic category of art they fell into: for music, there was MTV, for fashion, there was an F; our design language was simple—sort of like the alphabet. TV informed us of these production building blocks that we as aspiring creatives, could pattern after.
RJ so happens to find delight in mimicking such nostalgic framework (but oh so playfully): formerly a Clothing Technology major at the University of the Philippines, the once student sipped on the latest in fashion by tuning into FTV. For many a stylista, the channel broke open a portal into this glamorous world filled with beautiful clothes, supermodels, designers, photographers, and makeup artists. Without ever leaving home, segments on the tube could virtually grant viewers either a backstage pass or a VIP ticket—an absolutely voyeuristic experience as designers would talk about their work in party settings, oftentimes in a laid-back, practically blasé manner.
In slight comedic fashion, Randolf cheekily parallels elements of the iconic network in its recently released livestream video. Melding media concepts from both past and present, RJ teases the viewers with a peek into his latest collection, “Destination 0.”
It’s an interesting pastiche that takes us sweetly into the past, while swinging our hips without a care into the future.
