Viral blooming gown brings booming business to young designer

Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, April 12) — She posted a gown she made for her classmates to see — then, she went viral, landing her in the foreign press and getting her offers to do work.

"The numbers started growing, and I was confused, and people started giving me compliments," Ciara Gan, an incoming college freshman, told CNN Philippines' The Source.

Gan and her mother sewed an emerald green gown, hand-painted tiger lilies and stoned for her graduation ball. She posted about the process of creating the gown on Twitter just this Monday and got over 80,000 retweets and nearly 400,000 likes.

But those are not the only things she is receiving.

"I started getting messages about commissions to make art for people. It warmed my heart because I love it when people ask me to make art for them. So it really makes me really happy," Gan said.

A lot of people are asking her to do floral paintings for them, while others also want her to design gowns, even if her viral dress was only her second shot at designing and that parts of it were just hot glued together.

Aside from painting and fashion design, Gan, who hails from a family of artists, said she can do just about anything art related, like designing invitations and publicity materials, and creating vectors.

In the four months she has before entering college, Gan hopes to get and accept more commissions. "I need to save up for college. I also want to make more gowns in the future," she said.

She will take up a bachelor's degree in Management Information Systems at the Ateneo de Manila University this August and plans to incorporate art with science.

"I honestly have no idea yet [how to do that,]" Gan said. "I'll get there."