Thomasian fashion designer Salvacion “Slim” Lim-Higgins has been posthumously declared a National Artist for Fashion on Friday, June 10.
Lim-Higgins is one of the eight newly-declared national artists this year and the 19th addition to the Thomasian roster of National Artists.
In 1940, she majored in painting in the then UST Department of Architecture and Fine Arts under the tutelage of fellow Thomasian National Artist, Carlos “Botong” Francisco.
One of her greatest hallmarks included Slim’s Fashion & Arts School founded in October 1960, the country’s first and oldest fashion school. In 1947, she established her atelier which was also named after her.

Photo from Inquirer Lifestyle
In 1956, she completed an ensemble of a gray asymmetrical point terno which is one of her most famous pieces. The piece was acquired by the Victoria and Albert Museum in London.
Slim’s son and Slim’s Fashion & Arts School co-director, Mark Higgins, sent the piece as it “best represented” his mother’s style at the peak of her career.
“My mother talked about it all her life. It’s one of her masterpieces. It’s spontaneously sculpted on a human form. This is the ‘holy grail’ for designers to replicate. It is impossible to recreate it,” he said in an article from Lifestyle Inquirer.
Meanwhile, the Vinta Gallery described it as “a complex terno dress with a geometric silhouette, origami-like side pleat and crinkled draping, all held together with only one seam.”
The Thomasian alumna is known for being one of the pioneers on modern ternos as well as her “structurally complex” and “theatrical” works on female couture. World-renowned luxury fashion designers Christian Dior and Cristobal Balenciaga were her influences.
Lim-Higgins is the newest addition to the list of Thomasian National Artists which include Carlos Francisco, Nicomedes Joaquin, Victorio Edades, Vicente Manansala, Gerardo de Leon, Antonino, Buenaventura, Leandro Locsin, Rolando Tinio, Arturo Luz, Jeremias Elizalde Navarro, Ernani Cuenco, Daisy Hontiveros-Avellana, Francisco Sionil José, Ang Kiukok, Bienvenido Lumbera, Ildefonso Santos, Jr., Cirilo Bautista, José Marίa Zaragoza, and Francisco Mañosa.
Seven other national artists proclaimed this year were: Nora Aunor (film), Marilou Diaz-Abaya (film), Tony Mabesa (theater), Agnes Locsin (dance), Fides Cuyugan-Asencio (music), Ricky Lee (film), and Gemino Abad (literature).
Angela Gabrielle Magbitang Atejera
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