Georgia walks the ramp for Waterfront Goes Pink Fashion Show (Photo from Karina Celicious)
Georgia Solante had the sides of her head shaved when she walked down the staircase of the Waterfront Cebu City Hotel and Casino grand ballroom.
Clad in a pink one-piece pantsuit, she looked like the strong and powerful woman that she was.
Her friends and colleagues said she used to have long hair.
Perhaps it would have fallen the way her convertible long dress did to her feet when she reached the bottom of the stairs and into the ramp.
When Georgia opened her arms to show the third form of the convertible dress designed by Ms. Jul Oliva, she looked nothing less than strong, persevering and hopeful.
Georgia, who was on her fifth year of treatment for breast cancer, was one of the brave women who walked the ramp for Waterfront Goes Pink Fashion Show: Celebrating Strength, Perseverance, and Hope last October 1 to mark the beginning of Pink October: Waterfront’s celebration of Breast Cancer Awareness Month.
Most of the women in the show never walked in a fashion show before. “You should have seen them giggling up there,” said Mary Ann Alcordo-Solomon, friend and colleague of the breast cancer survivors featured on the show.
Designer Jul Oliva said that she admired how the women looked so optimistic. “Makakita ka sa ilang nawng nga it’s not the end of the world (You can see in their faces that it’s not the end of the world).”
Designer Rei Escario thought that they deserved that. “They won the battle against breast cancer. Now, it’s time for them to celebrate, make them feel beautiful, make them feel sexy.”
Designers Lord Maturan and Mel Maria featured strong women in elegant light-pink dresses.
Rei Escario and Jongz Loquinario showed women who persevered in their journey to recovery.
“I made a dress that basically would just fall,” said Escario. “It hides all the bulges but still shows their curves, their shoulders, their clavicle.”
Finally, Hanz Coquilla and Jul Oliva dressed women in original and meaningful dresses to highlight their hopefulness through the challenge of breast cancer.
“There is hope. It’s not the end,” said Georgia. When she was diagnosed with breast cancer, her son was only four years old.
“I realized that I have to fight this cancer . . . I have to beat it,” she said.
She joined ICanServe Foundation, an advocacy group for early breast cancer awareness, because she wanted to keep her family whole. /UP Cebu MassCom student Decelle Suarez