In pictures:
Iloilo’s women weavers
put a traditional spin
on sustainable fashion
The Covid-19 pandemic hit them hard and nearly took away their livelihoods. But with new initiatives launched to champion traditional textile makers and sustainable fashion, the artisans of Iloilo, Philippines, are back at work on their looms. This International Women's Day, we spotlight their stories and how they have overcome their struggles.
Anilene Tijing walks to the Indag-an Primary Multipurpose Cooperative (IPMC) at 8am in the morning on most weekdays, after preparing breakfast for her family and sending her three toddlers to school.
At the cooperative, the 34-year-old is welcomed by the familiar thud of wooden handlooms, locally called tiral, as the other women weavers of Indag-an, a small village on the foothills of Mount Tulajon in the municipality of Miag-ao, some 45 kilometres from the region’s capital Iloilo City in Central Philippines, expertly navigate the frame and work on their craft.
Tijing first learned the traditional art of hablon twine work—derived from the Hiligaynon word habol, which means “to weave”—at the age of 20 from her mother-in-law, as the matriarch had also learnt from her mother before her as a teen. At present, Tijing and her mother-in-law are senior members of the IPMC, a self-sufficient cooperative which houses nearly a dozen handlooms and has grown to some 80 members of women weavers, after first being established in 1991 with the vision of providing alternative livelihoods in the largely mountainous area.
“Indag-an has a strong community of empowered women thanks to this cooperative,” Tijing told Eco-Business in her native Kinaray-a. “Through weaving, we are able to contribute to our households and provide for our children’s needs as much as our husbands who are farmers, labourers and tricycle drivers.”
The heritage fabric hablon is a textile characterised by its bold colours and its signature plaid pattern. The art of weaving has enabled Iloilo to emerge as the country’s textile hub, with the skill being passed down through generations of women since the Philippines’ Spanish era.
Sixty-three-year-old Elda Baldon first took up hablon weaving at the age of 17 after graduating from high school. Her parents had been unable to come up with the money to pay for her college education as subsistence farmers in Badiangan, an agricultural town 40 kilometres outside of the city. Some four decades of weaving and entrepreneurial experience since, Baldon is now president of the Cabayogan Women Loom Weavers Association after putting all three of her children to school from her earnings as a hablon weaver.
“To tell you the truth, I feel weak if I don’t find the time to weave,” Baldon shared.
Silver linings
The Covid-19 pandemic, however, was a massive blow to these women’s source of income. Their earnings being heavily reliant on tourism, hablon weavers and others in similar cottage industries struggled to keep afloat. Baldon shared that, during this difficult time, their association scraped by only due to commissions for reusable facemasks and other personal protective equipment.
Disruptors like Panublix, a local marketplace that seeks to connect designers with craft artisans, were able to play a part in helping the women weavers with their livelihoods. The Iloilo-based women-founded start-up took the slowdown as an opportunity to steer traditional industries into markets that value sustainability.
Its co-founder Noreen Marian Bautista told Eco-Business: “We want to help reintroduce Iloilo as a textile capital of the Philippines and also play a part in spurring the growth of sustainable fashion in the country.”
Panublix—derived from the Hiligaynon word panubli which means “to inherit” and panubli-on (“heritage”)—is a start-up born out of the pandemic. The online marketplace makes it easier for designers, enterprises and buyers to connect with natural textile fibre producers, weavers and garment makers.
Since its inception in 2020, Panublix has been able to sell some 200 kilograms of blended cotton-abaca and cotton-piña tropical fibre products in its advocacy to replace synthetic polyester in the local supply chain. In the span of two years, it has created and sustained 284 jobs predominantly for women by partnering with the region's diverse weaving cooperatives and associations.
We want to help reintroduce Iloilo as a textile capital of the Philippines, and also play a part in spurring the growth of sustainable fashion in the country.
The push comes with the establishment in March 2022 of the pioneer Regional Yarn Production and Innovation Centre (RYPIC) in Miag-ao, Iloilo—a Department of Science and Technology-supported production and yarn-spinning facility that aims to make it easier for the region’s crafters and weavers to access sustainable tropical fibres and materials produced from locally-farmed abaca and pineapple, among others. Four similar facilities are slated to be established in other textile hubs in the Philippines to bolster the transition.
Much of hablon weaving in Iloilo has turned to synthetic fibres like polyester and nylon over the past few decades, as Philippine handloom textile producers struggled to compete with the prices of mass-produced fabrics from industrial economies like China and India.
Some 63 per cent of textile products are derived from planet-warming petrochemicals, more than half of this being polyester, the most common synthetic fibre, according to the International Labour Organization. The production of a single polyester
t-shirt is estimated to emit some 5.5 kilograms of carbon dioxide, releasing up to three times more emissions than a cotton garment. The production of two square metres of polyester fabric alone is equivalent to driving a petrol-fueled car for at least 32.5 kilometres.
The new innovation centre, however, hopes to spur more weavers back to natural tropical fibres like jusi, silk, and piña. The facility is envisioned to bring the region’s community of weavers closer to sustainable enterprises, said Philippine Textile Research Institute (PTRI) director Celia Elumba. She highlighted that the facility will not only be a “centre supporting cultural traditions in textiles, [but will also] catalyse developments in research in the textile field.”
Much of hablon weaving in Iloilo has turned to synthetic fibres like polyester and nylon over the past few decades, as Philippine handloom textile producers struggled to compete with the prices of mass-produced fabrics from industrial economies like China and India.
Much of hablon weaving in Iloilo has turned to synthetic fibres like polyester and nylon over the past few decades, as Philippine handloom textile producers struggled to compete with the prices of mass-produced fabrics from industrial economies like China and India.
Bolstering this connectivity, the PTRI has also built a country-wide database of regional handloom weavers and natural textile fibre producers.
Master weaver Baldo said she has found it inspiring to utilise more natural fibres again while partnering with Panublix, relating her humble beginnings weaving mosquito nets out of abaca as a teen. She further explains that although tropical yarns are trickier to work with, commissions using local fibres can reap higher dividends.
Baldo says she is paid about 100 pesos (US$1.80) per metre to weave with polyester, rayon, and/or nylon, but with natural fibres, she can charge a premium. Baldo and her weavers can earn up to 900 pesos (US$16.30) a day each weaving just three metres with cotton-piña or cotton-abaca blend materials.
Synthetic textiles affect the environment not only through their production emissions but also via pollutants. It is estimated that between 200,000 and 500,000 tonnes of microplastics from textiles enter the marine environment each year. With the rise of fast fashion, synthetic textiles account for 13 per cent of all plastic waste.
A YouGov Omnibus survey showed that at least 24 per cent of adult Filipinos sent more than 10 items of clothing to landfills between 2016 and 2017. Nearly three in ten Filipino consumers admitted to having thrown away an item of clothing after wearing it just once.
According to the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), the fashion industry uses 93 billion cubic metres of water annually—an amount enough to meet the consumption needs of five million people.
“We are merely a small part of the solution, but the industry push has to start somewhere,” said Bautista. “Hopefully by 2030, we have a thriving tropical textile and artisan craft ecosystem in the Philippines. We hope to be part of the solution that guides people on their sustainability journey. It’s about guiding the farmers, weavers, designers, and even end consumers to build a whole regenerative ecosystem.”
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