Anthony Cruz Legarda, a Filipino American fashion designer and textile technologist who devoted his career to bringing handwoven Philippine textiles into contemporary fashion, has died in Manila. He was 63.
The news was shared with TOFA NEWS by Lorna Dietz of San Francisco, one of Legarda’s longtime close friends. Legarda’s sister, Brenda Laurance, was traveling to Manila. Funeral and memorial arrangements were not immediately available.
Legarda was widely known for his work with piña, the finely woven Philippine textile made from pineapple-leaf fibers, as well as silk and other indigenous fabrics. His designs placed those materials in contemporary settings, pairing traditional weaving with tailored silhouettes and modern styling.
Long before Piña Couture and The Hinabi Project, Legarda developed Arkiteknik, a fashion-drama theater production presented in 2000. Dietz was the production’s creative writer. The project brought together fashion, visual art, photography, design and storytelling in an early expression of the interdisciplinary creative approach that would shape much of Legarda’s career.
“Arkiteknik” remained a meaningful word between Legarda and Dietz. Even during his later work with The Hinabi Project, Dietz said, Legarda would remark on how “Arkiteknik” they had all become—a reference to the enduring creative community and sensibility that grew around the project.
The work later inspired an Arkiteknik coffee-table book, published about 2004 or 2005, that documented Filipino American artistry across textiles, fashion design, photography, graphic design and creative writing. The project emerged from Legarda’s work with the Katutubong Filipino Foundation and reflected his early commitment to reviving and reimagining Philippine folk arts and crafts.
That commitment grew into a career spanning more than three decades. Legarda described his design approach as “fusion artwear,” combining indigenous handwoven Philippine fabrics with modern Western clothing. He did not treat piña as a museum piece; he treated it as a material with a future—one capable of carrying the artistry of weavers into new fashion contexts.
Community leader Sonia Delen said Legarda’s work was inseparable from his concern for the artisans who made the textiles he championed.
“Anthony Cruz Legarda was a true legend — but to me, he was first and foremost a dear, kind friend,” Delen said. “Anthony had such a deep and genuine love for our indigenous weavers and Philippine textiles.”
Delen said Legarda traveled throughout the Philippines to learn from artisans, honor their traditions and identify ways to introduce their work to wider audiences. He curated exhibits internationally and helped establish a permanent Hinabi Project display at Sentro Filipino in San Francisco, she said.
In 2016, Delen recalled, Legarda designed clothing featuring artwork by young people with autism for the Autism Hearts Foundation’s first exhibition at United Nations headquarters in New York. Several participating youths traveled from Manila for the exhibit.
“He brought together his creativity, generosity and belief in giving others a platform to shine,” Delen said.
She also remembered his generosity with children at the UPAASF Filipino Cultural Immersion Summer Camp and said members of KalayaanSF and the wider Filipino American community were mourning his loss.
“Anthony was a designer, cultural ambassador, advocate and storyteller — but above all, a beautiful friend,” Delen said. “You made our culture visible. You made our weavers proud. And you made so many of us proud to be Filipino.”
As co-founder and creative director of The Hinabi Project, Legarda worked to preserve and promote indigenous Philippine weaving traditions. The organization identified him as a fashion designer and textile technologist specializing in handwoven Philippine textiles and natural fibers.
His designs and research collaborations also connected him with the Department of Science and Technology–Philippine Textile Research Institute. In an Aug. 11 Facebook post, Legarda wrote that he was beginning a six-month project to create a 12-piece Philippine tropical fabrics collection for the institute’s 60th anniversary.
His work reached audiences far beyond the Filipino American community. In 2022, his garments were included in “From Pineapple to Piña: A Philippine Textile Treasure,” an SFO Museum exhibition at Harvey Milk Terminal 1. The exhibition paired historic and contemporary expressions of piña, a textile that the museum notes is unique to the Philippines.
Legarda also presented a 30-year retrospective, Piña Couture, in San Francisco in 2022. The collection reflected a career rooted in fashion but driven by a deeper purpose: honoring the skills, cultural knowledge and labor of Philippine weavers.
Through Arkiteknik, Piña Couture and The Hinabi Project, Legarda created a body of work that treated clothing not simply as fashion, but as culture, collaboration and a continuing conversation between the Philippines and the wider world.
