Ditta Sandico’s ‘It’s A Wrap’ Turns Philippine Weaving Into a Story of Fashion, Future, and Nationhood

“It’s a Wrap,” published by Far Eastern University, written by Francine Medina Marquez, and edited by Gayle Zialcita—centered on the remarkable 40-year journey of internationally known wrap artiste and cultural advocate, Ms. Ditta Sandico.

Quick take: It’s A Wrap: Ditta Sandico: Unraveling the Future of Fashion is a new coffeetable book from FEU Publishing that traces the Filipino designer’s 40-year journey through fashion, indigenous weaves, social enterprise, and the global life of Philippine craft.

What to know

The book: It’s A Wrap: Ditta Sandico: Unraveling the Future of Fashion

The focus: Ditta Sandico’s four decades of fashion, advocacy, indigenous textiles, and work with weaving communities.

Where to inquire: TAMS Bookstore at TamsBookstore@feu.edu.ph

It’s A Wrap: Ditta Sandico: Unraveling the Future of Fashion arrives as more than a coffeetable book. Published by Far Eastern University, the new volume places one of Philippine fashion’s most recognizable wrap artistes at the center of a larger story about indigenous weaves, Filipino design, sustainability, and the communities whose hands make culture visible.

There are designers who make clothes, and then there are designers who make people look again at what a country can wear.

For Ditta Sandico, the wrap was never just a garment. It became a language. It carried the shape of a woman in motion, the touch of indigenous fiber, the labor of weaving communities, and the larger question of how Philippine fashion can move forward without cutting itself away from where it came from.

That story now finds a fuller shape in It’s A Wrap: Ditta Sandico: Unraveling the Future of Fashion, a coffeetable book published by Far Eastern University, written by Francine Medina Marquez, and edited by Gay Eiko Yoshikawa-Zialcita.

The book looks back on Sandico’s four decades in fashion, but it is not framed simply as a retrospective. It is also a record of advocacy, material research, and community-building. At its center is the idea that Filipino fashion is not only about silhouette or spectacle. It is also about the people who grow, strip, weave, dye, embroider, carry, and preserve the materials that eventually appear on the runway.

Lush life. Quiet time in her garden, surrounded by her well-loved birds, gently kicks off and jumpstarts Ditta’s day. A true lover of nature and the outdoors, the garden is her quiet pleasure—a living sanctuary she tends, and watches grow.

A fashion story rooted in material, memory, and community

Sandico is known internationally as a “Wrap Artiste,” a designer whose work helped bring indigenous and organic Philippine fabrics into contemporary fashion. Her signature banaca, a banana-abaca woven fabric sourced from Catanduanes, has become one of the most recognizable elements of her design language. Through it, the book positions material culture not as background detail, but as the very beginning of design.

It’s A Wrap draws inspiration from indigenous communities, most notably the Mangyan tribe in Mindoro, whose hardworking and skillful women and their craftsmanship are sometimes overlooked. The press materials describe how Sandico’s dream and vision helped change the quiet lives of weaving communities, turning them into self-reliant hubs of social enterprise.

“Beyond promoting our designs, fashion shows serve as opportunities to raise awareness about the artistry and cultural heritage woven into every piece—to help people understand and appreciate the deeper meaning behind the clothes we make,” said Ditta Sandico.

That deeper meaning is where It’s A Wrap seems to draw its strongest thread. It is not only interested in what Philippine weaves look like when they arrive in Helsinki, Paris, Rome, Dubai, Los Angeles, New York, Moscow, Amsterdam, Tokyo, or Kuala Lumpur. It is also interested in what those weaves mean before they leave home.

Structure and sovereignty. Gold unfurls against black in disciplined, checkered folds, framed by the Capa La Reyna.

The future of Filipino fashion does not have to abandon its source

In that sense, the book offers something especially useful for young designers: a way of thinking about fashion as both art and responsibility. It asks what it means to build a design practice from local materials, to make sustainability part of the work rather than a marketing afterthought, and to treat indigenous craft as a living creative force instead of an aesthetic reference.

After 40 years in the industry, Sandico’s legacy appears not only in the pieces she has made, but in the doors she has helped open for Philippine weavers and embroiderers to be seen on a wider stage. Her work reminds us that fashion can be beautiful because of its surface, but lasting because of its source.

Modern and innovative. Timeless allure, impeccably poised. Worn by Tati, this sculptural look is set against the DITTA butterfly logo, a signature symbol of metamorphosis and refined femininity.

A book launch that turns pages into garments

The book launch brings the pages of It’s A Wrap to life through a fashion show and book preview, offering guests a first look at Sandico’s signature wrap creations alongside excerpts from the publication. The event highlights the interplay between narrative and garment, underscoring how each piece carries the stories of the communities behind the weave while presenting a contemporary vision of Filipino fashion.

The launch is made possible through the support of venue partner Y Space at the Yuchengco Museum, together with event partners Manille Liqueur de Calamansi, Diskarte Beer, Bubble Innovations, Arnel Papa, and Bluethumb.

For a designer whose work has long moved between heritage and reinvention, It’s A Wrap feels less like a closing statement than a continuation. It looks back, yes, but only so the future of Philippine fashion can be unraveled with more care, more context, and more pride.

Book details

Title: It’s A Wrap: Ditta Sandico: Unraveling the Future of Fashion

Published by: Far Eastern University

Written by: Francine Medina Marquez

Edited by: Gay Eiko Yoshikawa-Zialcita

Availability: The book is available through TAMS Bookstore. For inquiries, email TamsBookstore@feu.edu.ph.