About
The House
Where heritage becomes couture
From New York to Ecuador, designer Pablo Bailón brings decades of craftsmanship to couture — creating gowns shaped by individuality, heritage, and the woman who will wear them.
I
Heritage
Paja toquilla is the straw of the Ecuadorian coast. It is split by hand from the young leaves of the toquilla palm and woven in the towns around Montecristi, where the same fibre has been worked for generations into the finest hats in the world.
Pablo Bailón left Ecuador in 1984. The fibre followed him later.
II
Creation
He trained in New York — Fashion Design at FIT, 1996 — and then inside the houses that shaped him: Amsale Aberra, Manale, Junko Yoshioka, Angel Sanchez USA, Anna Maier. Patternmaking, construction, the architecture of a garment.
For many of those years the work was bridal, and it still is. A gown begins with a conversation: who is she, and how does she want to feel.
Every piece is cut and sewn by hand in the New York atelier. Nothing is rushed.
III
Innovation
In 2018 he brought paja toquilla into his first bridal collection. Not modernised — the weave is what it has always been. Set into cloth, it enters a new language.
Each panel is woven to the shape of the garment it will join. No two are identical; the variation is the signature of the hand.
IV
Legacy
After decades in New York, the house looks home. GALAP is expanding into Ecuador and Latin America.