‘IWANTED the collection to be a reminder of the coming end of the world,” fashion designer Jojie Lloren told our talkative table composed of Christian Espiritu and Barge Ramos during a Fashion Watch Quartet afternoon recently in the lobby lounge of the Makati Shangri-La Hotel as Lloren’s models were primping backstage. It may be too early to sound the alarm, but excuse us for asking the necessary question after we had seen the fashion show: Er, you mean (gulp) the end of the world?

Perhaps there are better ways to show this fascination with the apocalypse other than through fashion, but what we saw made a reference to something we have seen elsewhere.

If we were not made aware of Lloren’s dark intentions, would we be able to decipher for ourselves through the swirling fabrics and sculptural folds of Lloren’s latest oeuvre the dispassionate plea to sit back, watch and consider death and destruction on a planetary scale and then clap and shout “Brava! Brava!”? Does fashion convey a literal message that’s always obvious upon first glance, especially about something as grim as the darn last trumpet? Or does fashion always need a cipher? We don’t think so.

Lloren took us on a breathless journey with largely hour-glass shapes embellished with sculptural folds that were swirls of fabric twirled and formed like whirlwinds and waves. Elsewhere he made dresses with patterns that convoluted with the turmoil of the seas.

Then it struck us. The spiraling maelstroms on Lloren’s clothes brought to mind 16 images we had seen elsewhere. They were the 16 drawings of black chalk and charcoal on paper by Leonardo da Vinci in the Royal Library in Windsor Castle. Of the royal collection’s more than 600 da Vinci drawings, this suite has aroused quite a bit of speculation. The drawings show da Vinci’s renditions of a great flood as it billows and clouds over an Italian landscape. They are known as the “Deluge” suite of works on paper. Why he studied them, we aren’t sure. An intimation of death perhaps?

What we can be sure of is that this set of landscapes has come down to us as one of the finest—although not the first—impressions of a coming destruction. Notably, too, the Mayans considered the year 2012 the end of their calendar, and they foresaw awesome floods that would hit the Earth come next year, aside from a great big earthquake prior to the engulfing wetness. Brace yourselves for December 14 or so, they say.

So that’s where we made a connection. It was the billowing swirls of da Vinci’s—and the Mayan—water, sand and cloud that we were seeing again on the details of Lloren’s clothes. Variations of the theme can be found in other places, too, from Hollywood’s fascination with apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic stories to millennial cults we hear about on TV, to the UFO sightings in China, the roller-coaster ride of global financial markets on collapse one day and healthy the other, and the recent failed rapture proposed by US televangelist Harold Camping that did not materialize on May 21, but was brazenly moved to October 21 this year.

So your time may be up; our time, too. Time to enjoy what’s left of this existence again and again and again. But Lloren forgot to say something during our short tête-à-tête. The sculpted waves that perched like sentinels on his clothes were elements of a dark beauty, because when the eyes connect the lines, you don’t see waves or destruction anymore. You see the soft, black petals of a rose, the freshest reminder that there’s still life and death on the fast lane and the catwalk. Brava, brava!