Before founding his namesake label in 2015, Carl Jan Cruz had followed the conventional trajectory of the fashion design student; he studied at London College of Fashion and then cut his teeth interning at Celine during the iconic reign of Phoebe Philo. Upon graduation, however, Cruz decided that he wanted to go back to his native Philippines and create his brand in the capital, Manila—a city not known for its fashion scene. It was also across the world from everyone and everything he thought he needed to build a thriving fashion label on the global stage.

What made you gravitate toward fashion as a student?
I grew up in three different places—Manila, Albay [a province in the Philippines] and London. I was living out of a suitcase, constantly packing and having limited options to wear. When you’re young, you have those favorite things that you always want to wear so I’d have to find ways to create the outfits that I wanted. How I perceived clothes grew from a point of practicality, and my aesthetic was shaped through that.

What was the biggest challenge you encountered when setting up your brand?
Distance. Being halfway around the world is a literal act of meeting people halfway. It’s been a constant challenge, always prompting us to rethink how we can introduce ourselves to our audience. Doing our independent showroom in Paris twice a year and actually being able to communicate our work through the clothes is a vital way to bridge this. It doesn’t take much to get someone to engage in something, so long as what you do is impactful. Though mostly posing a challenge, distance has helped us to realize the codes and processes of the brand.

Tell us about somaesthetics and how it plays a role in your work.
Somaesthetics is about considering yourself from a third-person perspective and confronting that viewpoint—an unbiased opinion about yourself. Somesthetics was a key principle in my final collection at London College of Fashion. I wanted to examine the uniqueness of how we grow up as individuals and apply this to something aesthetically. In the beginning, it was rooted in photographs and clothes that I’d collected over the years, but it became a search for something within the world of academia. It then shaped how the brand could take form and pushed me to not only create things that I liked but that actually represented a strong part of myself. Somesthetics is a big part of our DNA at the brand.

How would you describe the fashion scene in Manila?
I think there is a healthy curiosity towards diversifying fashion, and how one can design and produce clothing within a contemporary sphere in the Philippines. I’d never have thought that a substantial part of our market share would be actual Filipino people who gravitate towards our ethos, but that’s the case today and has been for four years running.

To what extent do the sociopolitical and economic circumstances of the Philippines impact your approach toward business or fashion?
Making peace with the idea that not everything in the Philippines would work in my favor—be it political, social or economic—was something that I had to do quite quickly. However, I sincerely believe that there is a possibility of being able to change things for the better. It’s an interesting time in the Philippines in terms of its economy, politics and even religion. It prompts you to question your heritage and what you do. “Island time” is a useful factor too. Time is nearly always on your side here and the task is yours to figure out a way of dealing with it. A lifetime doesn’t last forever so, for me, it’s very much about being conscious of how my actions contribute not only to my own life but to the people and society around me.