Long before BKNWA became a name on a shirt, Bakunawa already belonged to Philippine folklore.

Across Visayan traditions, Bakunawa is associated with the moon and the eclipse, often imagined as a great serpent that rises to swallow the light. Accounts vary from place to place, but the image remains familiar: the moon disappearing, the creature taking it, and people responding with noise until the light returns.

It is from this figure that BKNWA takes its name.

But the brand does not attempt to retell the myth literally. Instead, Bakunawa became an entry point into a larger visual language. Drawing, blackwork, ornament, negative space, carved forms, plants, textiles, devotional imagery, and references gathered from everyday Filipino surroundings gradually became part of the same body of work.

The process remains simple at its core. The work starts on paper. Form is established first, then pattern and detail are built around it. From there, the drawing can become a garment, an image, a print, or an object. What changes is the format. The hand behind it stays visible.

In that sense, BKNWA is less an attempt to recreate an old story and more a continuation of a habit that has always existed in creative work: taking something inherited, looking at it again, and finding a contemporary way to carry it forward.

Bakunawa is the reference. BKNWA is what grew from it.