While some of us content ourselves with purchasing mass-made items from department stores and sales, a steady and growing need to assert one’s self through limited-edition and carefully crafted clothing is now on the rise.

At The Collective on Malugay Street in Makati, dubbed by one wit as “Makati X” for its similarity in spirit to the former Marikina Show Expo in Cubao, which has since been reincarnated as a series of fashionable shops and cafes, a huge section on one wall is plastered with colorful street art, as various stores radiating from the large open space take on different flavors and aspects. Ritual is a shop that champions Filipino organic or eco-friendly goods. Wabi-Sabi is where you can get an affordable and filling bowl of noodles to go with a refreshing glass of lemongrass tea, near a store selling vinyl records and other collectibles. And at Black Book Design, you can have an impeccably sewn chambray shirt by Fulk, select one-of-a-kind accessories or art pieces, commission your own fixed gear bike, and pick up a roomy bag ideal for slinging across your torso on a quick bike ride across the city.

Its seemingly disparate offerings are the result of an unusual partnership between four friends: Igino Celdran Dalao, Noel Maralit, Katrina Tan and Archie Geotina.

Getting the Biz Off the Ground

While all of them have day jobs, so to speak—Gino and Katrina are part of Creative Sparks (a custom publishing group), Noel is a director at a multinational BPO company and Archie is an artist—all of them felt the need to pursue an alternative way of doing business and promoting a shared passion for urban or fixed gear bikes (popularized in movies like Kevin Bacon’s “Quicksilver”). Tan had previously worked for a magazine group, and had plenty of friends whose designs appealed to her; Dalao had initially gone into creating chambray shirts for himself, but saw its business potential when others began asking where he bought his shirts; Maralit and Geotina were friends who bonded with Dalao over bikes, and it was inevitable that they would see eye-to-eye on many things.

When The Collective was created, one of its developers or administrators approached Geotina, familiar with his work as a graffiti artist, hoping he would have an idea for a shop. Initially, Black Book “was supposed to be an art supply store,” according to Geotina, “but it turned out to be un-creative for me.” Archie then had his “lightbulb moment” when he discovered the works of artists like The Apprentice, who liked to create functional art pieces like the spider lamp, or the grinning skull that would emit a laugh when moved. It was then he figured out that the “design applied to something useable” philosophy pretty much extended to his friends’ interest in bikes and clothing/accessories. It would create an open platform for collaboration which would ensure a steady but ever-changing stream of items that would be featured in the store. Further inspiration would come from a trip to Hong Kong, where he would marvel at shops on Central Lane, like Martin Margiela’s, wondering how to bring that sort of awe-inspiring “wow factor” lifestyle approach to his own shop—which in turn led him to asking for help from his friends.

Coming Together

Was it easy getting them involved? A blunt “no” is Geotina’s response, followed by the explanation that he “was really bad at math,” which affected his feasibility study, or his pitch, which he would verbally explain and would get responses like “that’s nice” or “that’s awesome”—but no more than that. To get committed partners, he had to constantly refine his ideas about Black Book, present a financial study and meet up with friends like Noel, Gino and Katrina—until they all decided it was time to put their effort into getting the shop off the ground.

Naming the shop after the ubiquitous ebony notebook often used by artists to keep their sketches (or by Nazi generals to keep the names of their followers), Black Book Design’s founders have created a unique niche for themselves in The Collective as well as in Makati, if not Metro Manila. While they rotate manning Black Book to determine the best times to keep the shop open for its target customers (stores at the Collective observe their own hours depending on the clientele), there’s no shortage of ideas to promote the shop online and in print. One indefatigable supporter of this endeavor is Gino’s mom, the bubbly Zenaida “Zen” Celdran, who used to operate a dress shop and bemusedly watched her son develop his own aesthetic when it came to clothes, citing how he was terribly finicky about shirt materials.

The admirable thing about Black Book Design, as well as their compatriots at The Collective, is their indomitable entrepreneurial spirit, which should inspire many more to get the guts and invest in their own businesses when they don’t have the heart to just fork out the cash for a franchise.

Black Book Design is at Suite B, The Collective, 7274 Malugay St, Makati City. For more information on the store, check out blackbookdesign.blogspot.com or manilafixedgear.blogspot.com—you can also e-mail them at blackbookdesignpilipinas@gmail.com or manilafixedgear@gmail.com.