Why Not by Leah Puyat: Rajo's Revolution

The best person to elucidate on Rajo's latest collab with Bench is Rajo himself. Here he is in his own words:

"There were actually two projects, the scent and the jeans collection. The beauty of this collaboration is that Ben gave me carte blanche. He really said to me, 'Rajo bahala ka na, do what you want.' So for me, jeans are purely democratic fashion. And so at last, I was able to design the jeans that I wanted to wear. It started with the mood board that was inspired by Japanese street style. Then the jeans supplier walked me through the process and even the choosing of the buttons got me so excited. And the little details with the folding of the hem and all the other details, I got to do what I wanted. With jeans, you can be preppy, punk, gay, straight, and you can wear jeans. And especially with the price points, these jeans are for everybody."

"For the perfume, it's a very intangible thing, so I thought about the feelings I wanted to evoke. At first, I just wanted one scent, but my sister in her wisdom found it too strong. So when I asked Ben if we could do two scents, he said yes. And that's how the dichotomy of the paradox that underlied the show came about. I have Peter Pan syndrome, I really wanted the show to be all about what's young. Hence, Enchong and the 30 plus plus young ones we could find!"

In these backstage photos, Rajo said that the atmosphere was one of "calm nervousness." He says, "I have learned through the years that when you do the right pre-prod, and surround yourself with the right people, everything will fall into place."