This is part two of a feature series on the terno. Read part one on the Dissociation of the terno from its Imeldific iconography here.

MANILA – JP's fingers moved fast as he marked where the pleats are supposed to go on a butterfly sleeve. He made 18 neat folds, one after the other less than an inch distance between each, the iconic form of the butterfly sleeve emerging as he maneuvered the fabric with equal parts deft and strength. It is no mean feat: the piña fabric is made hard and difficult to handle by a layer of pilon cloth or fusible interfacing fabric which gives the butterfly sleeve its characteristic stiffness.

A butterfly sleeve made in their workshop usually only has 8 pleats to create its distinct bell-curve, but the client requested for a more intricate design, and so JP made sure they get it.

JP and his mother Edna Ramos sat behind high-speed sewing machines adjacent to each other in the corner of a room lit by fluorescent lights, fanned by the bare blades of a plastic fan.

Two weeks before President Ferdinand "Bongbong" Marcos Jr.'s inauguration, and as many others who emerged victorious in the 2022 elections are sworn into office, JP and Edna were hard at work to meet the wave of orders received by Dory's Embroidery in Pandi, Bulacan.

"Naku, ngayon sa panahon na 'to, sigurado, bugbugan na naman 'yan. Kahit sa barangay, ganyan ang ginagamit," Edna said.

(Oh, during this time we really have to work twice as hard. Even barangay officials who get sworn in use those.)

She refers to the terno, the descendant of the traje de mestiza, a matching four-piece outfit made of the camisa, saya, pañuelo, and tapis. Through many evolutions, the terno is now characterized mainly by its bell-shaped butterfly sleeves, sometimes called "Imelda sleeves," after former First Lady Imelda Romualdez-Marcos made it her signature dress.

A guitar hung on the wall behind Edna, while a plastic poster of a waterfall is behind JP, some of the few decorations left in what was formerly a home, now turned into a workshop for Dory's Embroidery.

Every nook and cranny of what used to be a living room, a kitchen, and a dining area were maximized for the shop's production area: as storage for countless spools of thread and rolls of cloth, as work areas where high-speed sewing machines whirr nonstop, and as places where mannequins show off the gowns and Filipinianas Dory's dressmakers create from their own bare hands.

For the past 32 years, Edna has been making dresses and Filipinianas for all kinds of occasions, "Simula sa pambinyag, hanggang sa pamburol, basta pambabae."

(I make dresses for girls and women, for occasions from their Christening all through to their funeral.)

She was only Grade 2 when the Ferdinand Marcos Sr. declared Martial Law, but even at a young age, she remembered the Filipiniana's iconic sleeves being referred to as "Imelda sleeves." In their workshop however, the butterfly sleeves are called "saltik," a Tagalog word for slingshot, but is used in some areas of Bulacan to refer to something tilted or slanted upwards.

But "saltik" is a a word for the sleeve only those in the Filipiniana-making trade are familiar with, so when dealing with customers, business owner Dory Garcia uses "Imelda sleeves," which immediately resonates and clicks with the buyer.

Despite its negative association to the opulent lives of the Marcoses led by their matriarch, and then being avoided by former President Corazon Aquino after the Marcos ouster in 1986, the terno remained relevant through the years.

"Kahit sino ang naging presidente natin, hindi siya nawala," Edna shared how the regal and "uniquely Filipino" look given by the terno that clients go after, "Pilipinang-Pilipina. Kasi dito lang sa atin meron niyan."

(Through many presidencies, the terno never disappeared. It looks distinctly Filipina. Only the Philippines has it.)

Its specialty makes it all the more attractive. A butterfly sleeve takes expert hands to make, and even expert hands need to keep up with new techniques.

It took JP 10 years making the simpler kimona Filipiniana before he was deemed skilled enough to make ternos. After graduating high school, he learned from his mother how to sew, but now it is Edna who learns from him new techniques to make the butterfly sleeves better, "Para mas maganda ang tindig ng manggas (So the sleeves stand up better)."

"'Yun kasi ang nagdadala sa damit. Ang ibang manggas pwede mo isabay ang tupi deretso sa kili-kili. 'Yan hindi, dapat sukatin mo, dapat pare-parehas. 'Yung damit at 'yung manggas dapat sakto ang sukat niya para 'pag pinagtagpo mo 'yung kili-kili at manggas, flat na flat. Kasi 'pag lumaki 'yung isa, hindi [maganda]. Kaya hindi kami lahat dito nakakatahi noon. Tiyagaan," Edna said, as he watched JP handle piña and pilon templates.

(It's the sleeves that make the terno. Other sleeves can be folded and sewn at the same time onto the pit hole of a garment, but the butterfly sleeve's measurements must perfectly match the terno body's sleeve hole, so when the two pieces are attached the bututerfly sleeves stand perfectly upright. If the measurements don't match and are sewn together, the sleeves don't stand up the way they should. Which is why not everyone here can make it, it takes a lot of patience and skill.)

With the attention to detail each entails, one terno piece a day is already productive for JP. Edna in her age usually stays home now that she is 58 years old, but ABS-CBN News found her at Dory's Embroidery working on a large order of ternos with her son. Dressmakers like her are not privy to information for whom the orders they make are, but the garments needed to be delivered on Saturday, a day before Vice President-elect Sara Duterte's inauguration.

Three days before she takes oath, designer Silverio Anglacer revealed his design for an intricately pleated and embroidered one-piece green terno for the incoming vice president.

LOOK: Here is the outline illustration of Vice President-elect Sara Duterte’s Filipiniana gown for her inauguration, as made by designer Silverio Anglacer. (📸 Silverio Anglacer) @DZMMTeleRadyo @ABSCBNNews pic.twitter.com/4hrkuXrgAf

— Joyce Balancio (@joycebalancio) June 16, 2022

Duterte and her female family members arrived at her inauguration in Davao City wearing varying shades of green terno dresses made of different cloth and lace materials.

President-elect Ferdinand Marcos Jr.'s wife Atty. Liza Marcos arrived in another knee-length green terno, this time with a modern asymetric blue print.

Edna and JP are both thankful to the terno, and for Imelda, for popularizing it so much that the demand for the dress has sustained a large part of their livelihoods.

Dory's Embroidery supplies ternos and other formalwear in Taguig, Pampanga, Quezon City, and Manila. It is one of the many formalwear suppliers in Bulacan.

Beside the Baclaran church, a string of formalwear shops get their supplies from Bulacan dressmakers. Sales are only just beginning to pick up again after the pandemic. Here, Raquel Solatre and her mother Nora Jacinto have found their own livelihoods.

Solatre, a single-mother, used to take laundry jobs and sort through garbage for scraps to sell, but was taken in by the shop-owner of NJ's Modernong Disenyo where her mother has worked for 28 years now. Now she tends to another shop several stores down from where her mother works.

"'Yan [terno] ang number one na mabenta sa amin. Mabili ngayon lalo 'yung mga bagong design. 'Di ba noon mahahaba, ngayon inigsian, tapos nilagyan ng slit, modern Filipiniana na," Solatre said.

(The terno is our number one best-seller, especially the new and more modern designs which are shorter, and some come with slits on the skirts.)

To adapt with the times and to customers' budgets, other options to ternos which Solatre sell are ladies' barong tops with butterfly sleeves. These can be paired with simple skirts or slacks. There are also bolero and blazers with butterfly sleeves that can be worn over tops displayed in the store. Detachable butterfly sleeves are also available; the dress it attaches to can also be worn as a tube-top. Upon request, butterfly sleeve pairs are also brought out from storage and sold on their own from 300 to 350 pesos, for those who may already have dresses at home which they want to turn into a terno.

Even here in Baclaran, the butterfly sleeve's association to the former first lady resonates, said Solatre, "Talagang hindi siya mawawala, 'pag sinabing Imelda, alam na po nila 'yung sleeve na 'yun. Kasi siya talaga ang nagpauso noon."

(It never disappeared and it never will. When people say 'Imelda sleeve," we know what they mean. It's because she popularized it.)

Part of the propaganda during the Marcos era was the theatrics that came with portraying a wealthy nation: Imelda played her part as the fashionable and regal first lady.

She earned the nickname "The Iron Butterfly," donning the butterfly sleeves of the terno as her signature look, both imposing and elegant at the same time.

Executive Director of Kapisanan Philippine Centre for Arts & Culture in Toronto Caroline Mangosing's VINTA Gallery blog said the butterfly sleeves contributed greatly to the image of opulence the first family was trying to exude: "when [the butterfly sleeves sit] perfectly on the shoulders, the wearer simply oozes pure confidence, feminine fierceness and indescribable power."

The bespoke terno became "a symbol of wealth and social status in the Philippines," VINTA Gallery read.

"'Talo pa natin si Imelda! Mas bongga pa tayo sa ikakasal.' Parang napaka-disente mo, marangal, para kang pupunta sa palasyo," Solatre shared how customers would react once they put on a terno to fit.

("We look even grander than Imelda, better than the bride," is what they usually say. When you're in a terno, you look very decent, ready to enter any palace.)

Tony Dela Cruz of NJ's Modernong Disenyo said there is no month in a year where ternos were not purchased from their shop. It has found its place as a go-to outfit for the most splendid of occasions to the simplest of gatherings that require semi-formal attire.

Mark Lewis Higgins and Gino Gonzales of the book "Fashionable Filipinas: An Evolution of the Philippine National Dress in Photographs, 1860-1960" said that Philippine fashion has arrived at a point where the terno is worn beyond national holidays.

"The wearing of this garment has increased dramatically in the past years, and it has risen from obscurity to become a more recognized and utilized garment," they said.

"The terno has always stood, and continues to stand as an icon on its own. It is a garment that symbolizes the unique culture and history of the Philippines," they added.

Dela Cruz in his many conversations with clients and customers chalks up the demand for the terno to a sense of pride to wear something beautiful that is uniquely Filipino for the world to see.

"Kailangan di mawala ang kultura natin dahil kahit sa ibang bansa umo-order sa amin. Mga balikbayan tapos ipapadala sa mga kamag-anak nila. Diyan nakikita na Pilipino tayo, tayo lang ang may ganyan eh," Dela Cruz shared.

But despite being identified with her, the terno is not just the former First Lady's. For dressmakers, shop-owners, and shopkeepers, the term "Imelda sleeve," today carries with it less the history brought by its association, and instead is merely a more practical way to refer to a desired Filipiniana dress design.

"Sa ating lahat 'yan, siya lang ang nagpasikat. Hindi lang sa kaniya 'yan, sa Pilipino 'yan," Dela Cruz said.