Innholdsfortegnelse for March 2023 i VOGUE PHILIPPINES

IN THE 60S, PARIS SAW A NEW STYLE OF FILMMAKING EMERGE THAT CHANGED THE COURSE OF CINEMA. A realistic style and raw filming technique were the defining elements of what would be known as the French New Wave. The artistic movement embraced an experimental approach, minimalist acting, and a break away from traditional film tropes of its era. As a nod to the film style, Cartier enlisted director Guy Ritchie, and actors Catherine Deneuve and Rami Malek to star in a short film that also brings together the City of Lights and their emblematic timepiece, the Tank Française. The result is a boy-meets-girl story where the characters meet across time—from the 70s, 90s, and 21st century Paris—on the Seine-spanning Alexandre III bridge. The interwoven narrative in the minute-long cine features…

Seamless head-to-toe draping were seen across runways, from Saint Laurent's twisted and hooded columnar dresses or Alaia's modern cloaks to Ferragamo's cowls that transition into tube dresses. From the top, falling into deep Vs, and softly gathered folds, the season's speaks of a desire to cocoon within the refinement of a polished silhouette.…

A sartorial garden takes root on the runway, with blooms big on impact. Blown-up anthuriums cleverly molded unto bodices were Loewe's offering of wearable art. Offbeat details on dresses and floral footwear follow. Richard Quinn's version were magnified midnight roses, perched as exaggerated brooches or found in a dress disguised as a bouquet. Carolina Herrera's classic take on cascading blossoms came as shoulder statements, while Prabal Gurung delivers a fresh maximalist arrangement in jeweled-toned fuchsias and magentas. That's enough reason for us to stop and smell the roses.…

TO NORMAN RENE DE VERA, FASHION IS A CONTINUOUS OPEN-ENDED EXPLORATION. When garments are placed within his world, they reveal stories and sensuous experiences. Meaning becomes synonymous with emotion and emotion embodies the life of the designer. In his eyes, fashion becomes a real labor of love loaded with sentiment and memories. The Paris-based Filipino designer greets us at eight in the morning, whirring with contagious, magnetic energy. Dressed head-to-toe in black, he apologizes that he's late. “I do everything at the last minute,” he admits. He is currently in Geneva for Défilé HEAD (The Geneva University of Art and Design Fashion Show). From the beginning of the conversation, he asserts what informs his decisions: pure instinct. “The [winner's] design [should evoke] an emotion in me that makes me want…

While flowers continue to bloom on land in time for spring, the runway had plans to take the season elsewhere. With a head-first, deep-dive into the ocean, variations of blue from cobalt to indigos decorated the eyes of Off-White's models, while cerulean to turquoise shades were spread across faces of models in Etro. Cool metallic blues and silver shimmers around the eyes also prevailed on the Chloé and Jil Sander runways. “Cool and metallic tones are making a comeback for the ultimate sultry eye and a more lived-in and grungy application is also trending,” says go-to editorial makeup artist, Sylvina “Slo” Lopez. She adds, “Using clear gloss on bare skin/lids or even with some glitter or highlighter mixed in can be an easy way to achieve that glassy hyper-real skin…

FEATURE “I 've been singing all day,” admits Ginger Gonzaga. “Fun fact: singing is scientifically proven to elevate your mood. It may not make my neighbors happy, but it makes me happy.” “Mental health was often taboo in my Filipino family, but if there's one thing I really know about Filipinos, it's that we have so much love,” shares Gonzaga. She adds that this love should guide these open conversations, no matter how difficult the topics can get. “Filipinos have historically survived so much. Our culture is so fearless.” She emphasizes that it is never a comfortable experience to address these matters. However, in pushing through that stigma and understanding someone's pain, it may lead to compassion that can help people heal. “We have no need to fear honest, non-judgmental…

“THE IMPACT TH AT THIS COVER IS CREATING” says Gabi Wilson, aka H.E.R., the Filipino-American, Grammy- and Oscar-winning musician. “This is for all the young Black and Filipino girls out there!” At Bar Lis, which sits atop LA's Thompson Hotel, guests like Jaden and Willow Smith, Winnie Harlow, and Patrick Starrr toasted H.E.R. and her Vogue Philippines cover, which was shot in Cabanatuan, Nueva Ecija-the hometown of Wilson's mother's Agnes. The intimate party was held during the weekend of the Grammy's, where H.E.R. is once again nominated for her work with various artists, among them Mary J. Blige. Joining H.E.R. and her parents (who surprised her at the event) were members of her team, including longtime stylist Wouri Vice, and Vogue Philippines guests like Filipino designer Puey Quiñones, host Mond…

ALL THE BRIGHT PLACES he says. “It becomes a continuous story.” The story pivoted, like most things did, during the pandemic, which triggered something he had been contemplating for a while. In the US, he felt like he couldn't really call himself a Filipino artist, even though his parents are from the Philippines. The only way he could do so was to relocate his studio to Manila. “I needed to understand what it is like to be in the Philippines, and to understand my parents’ culture, and just really immerse myself and become part of the art scene here,” he says. “If I wanted to include that into my storyline, into the works that I do, I had to move.” Rachel Rillo, co-director of Silverlens Galleries, thinks that his move…

It's a balmy mid-afternoon, and in the outdoor seating of Sentro 1770, the Vogue Philippines team has merienda with the creatives for our March cover shoot. Daniela, a bright eyed and buoyant young woman from Poland, one of our cover stars, suddenly puts down her spoon and stares at the mango suman in front of her. She apologizes, wiping away fresh tears. “It reminds me of my mom's cooking,” she says. To be seen, to be sensed, to be celebrated—our March issue is our tribute to women and feminine thread that binds us. We have been witnessing countless sparks of reconnection, when memories and hopes collide into the present moment. This sense and sensibility ushers in our March issue. Post pandemic, Vogue Philippines chronicles our times and global context, sharing…

Pantone may have announced Viva Magenta as its color of the year—but the runway's hue of choice begs to differ. Consistent on designers’ roster of springsummer offerings is one striking shade: lime green. The highlighter hue figured on a three-piece set at Elie Saab, sculptural crop bustier at Collina Strada, and high-low goddess frock at Michael Kors. Italian house Fendi and Japanese label CFCL offer a subdued tone with see-through layers and porcelain white accents. Aliette and Etro lean into the shade's deeper spectrum via an asymmetric billowy dress and bodycon two-piece. The color of now is a celebration of summer's full-fledged return to the great outdoors.…

POLK A DOTS & MIRRORED DESIGNS HAVE BECOME SYNON YMOUS WITH ARTIST YAYOI KUSAMA. Over the past seven decades, the 93-year-old's oeuvre transcends Surrealism, Pop art, Eccentric Abstraction, Minimalism, the Zero and Nul movements. Guided by her avant-garde vision, her work offers snapshots of boundless space and fantastical paintings of loops and dots. In January, Kusama's transformative world takes over French luxury fashion house Louis Vuitton for a third collaboration. Every piece is a rendition of the artist's revered installations with cascading motifs and the notion of infinity projected through hand-painted dots and exotic flowers. Emblazoned on the Capucines, Dauphine, and iconic trunks, her signature brush-stroked dots prove to be timeless. Black and silver leather handbags are embedded with silver orbs known as Kusama's metal dots (derived from her 1966…

The feline flick, over time, has evolved in the way we see and shape the eye. Celebrity makeup artist, Gela Laurel Stehmeier, shares that, not only has it been historically situated as an aesthetic tool, but has also served as a representation of one's status, power, cultural beliefs, and even hygiene. “The feline flick continues to evolve along with fashion.” The classic cat eye, in elongated and experimental forms dominated the Dolce and Gabbana stage. While makeup at Christian Dior took the trend to greater lengths with lines sharply extending beyond the eye and Fendi juxtaposed glimmer-filled flicks over bare eyes.…

The first time I got eyelash extensions was two years ago at Cils en Seine, a small, elegant space in Paris and one of the city's first studios dedicated to the service. Wanting a natural look, I asked the esthéticienne for a lash type with relatively relaxed courbure, or curvature. She looked at my downward-growing lashes—a trait shared by many Koreans—and shook her head. “You need a lot more courbure than you think.” Much like sheet masks and snail slime serums, lash extensions—the technique of gingerly adhering false lashes to existing ones with glue—have become one of Seoul's biggest beauty exports. The extensions fall off with the natural growth cycle, or can be removed with a solvent, but most clients tend to get their lashes redone every three to four…

FEATURE Inspired by quilts, the North Star, and a poem about freedom, this bag collaboration hopes to inspire a new generation of abolitionists. I'VE TRAVELED TO MULTIPLE CONTINENTS WITH THE BAG, and I can't tell you how many people have stopped me to tell me, ‘that's such a beautiful design. What is that?'” Patrisse Cullors says. “It's such a conversation starter.” The bag in question is a square-framed woven rattan knapsack with a prominent star bursting forth, striking in its simplicity, like a beacon on one's back. The conversations Cullors hopes to ignite with this bag can go deep and they can be heavy, with big concepts like abolition and “white supremacist capitalist patriarchy.” That's quite a lot to unpack with this bag. Cullors co-founded the Black Lives Matter movement and…

OWEN MADDELA Writer, SENSE & SENSIBILITY One, it celebrates Filipino creative talent. Two, it empowers local entrepreneurs and communities. Three, it's about damn time. WAWI NAVARROZA Artist, WILD AT HEART One, it's exciting to see Philippine fashion is coming to our own with renewed interest in local material history (our textiles and the terno is definitely back) contrasted with taking raw inspiration from Pinoy street vernacular both from Manila and more so from the provinces at last! Two, there's also a sense of tapping into shared memories and cultural referencing as a basis for new design and innovation. Three, this is empowering as decolonizing gestures; we're no longer afraid to show who we really are. HAROLD JULIAN Photographer, NOTES FROM PARADISE One, the push toward environmental and ethical responsibility is…

On the runway, denim gets re-energized with textural evolutions from prints, studs, deconstructions, and reconstructions. Silhouettes ran the range from dresses to gowns to separates to coordinates. Name a shape, and denim this season has probably done it. Blumarine's collection presents a number of full looks in a faded warm-toned wash, but the star of the show was metal studs emblazoned in designs across the whole collection. Burberry revitalizes indigo by melding it with monotoned lace giving a more tactile feel. At Diesel, imperfection is the goal with distressed edges and frayed fringes. Says creative director Glenn Martens, “The piece is supposed to look ‘broken’ so that you can live with it forever.”…

Although pigment placements have commonly been restricted to particular areas of the face, this year's spring collections saw changes leading to a fluid, free-for-all color wonderland. With experimental shapes and shadows extending past the eye, versatility became the name of the game on the runway. Jean Paul Gaultier Couture, for one, focused on hyper-pigmented shades around the eyes. Chet Lo showcased colored drapes around cheekbones and temples in lieu of blushes. While Simone Rocha took a minimalist-maximalist approach with fuschia-red liners. Apart from pairing range-wide palettes with muted lips, celebrity and editorial makeup artist, Robbie Piñera, recommends using a good eye primer to keep makeup from creasing and fading. In addition, “a good black mascara will amplify the colored eye more. Apply multiple coats to achieve a full false lash…

“This season is all about healthy, glowy, beautiful skin and natural makeup,” says Marissa Vossen, long-time makeup artist of R&B singer, H.E.R. From Schiaparelli and Valentino Couture to Hermès, Sacai, Miu Miu and Max Mara Ready-to-Wear collections, makeup artists broadened the trend from moistures and mattifies, to smooth skin sans coverage. Fendi, for one, showcased real skin textures, while Balmain brought glowy faces, naturally-groomed brows, and effortlessly curled lashes to the fore. In a distinct fashion, Givenchy and Loewe focused on the eyes with sky high volume lashes and shadows then contrasted them on a bare canvas. With the onset of a new season, natural beauty continues to reign in the runway.…

One can argue that there's a seismic shift in fashion. Many individuals are witnessing a widening acceptance of style with no boundaries. Continuously responding to social and cultural shifts, fashion is the first language of an evolving culture. Embracing what is considered contemporary and off-kilter, it can be playful and disrupting all at once. A mirror to the times, this notion is a reflection of the way younger generations are dressing. Tapping into their creative energy, fashion takes on a new mood. Prizing individuality and uniqueness, it embodies a striking view of what the future can look like. Embracing the classic languid silhouettes of traditional menswear and injectingmidriff-baring basics, we subvert traditional sartorial codes. Quirky glamour takes on a new meaning with breezy frocks coupled with a pair of Air…

FEATURE MIDWAY THROUGH OUR ZOOM INTERVIEW, weaver artist Cynthia Alberto dons a llama mask with faux fur and glass eyes, her laughter trilling through the latex and the fiber optic lines that connect us through the thousands of miles that separate New York City from Manila. Cynthia wore the mask in performance art shows called “The Weaving Llama” in 2019 and 2020. In one of them, the sound of Cynthia's clicking loom and an ancestral sarunay from Mindanao were interlaced with piano and electronic keyboard melodies. The following year, Cynthia took her llama alter ego and loom outdoors, where she wove colorful fabrics, banged on a drum instrument, and danced on a street corner in Queens to engage the local community. Her works are inspired by traditional processes of weaving…

FEATURE YOU ARE NEVER THE SAME, I quietly told myself while taking in the view from our balcony in Istanbul looking over the panorama of Beşiktas and the grand Bosporus, the slice of water dividing the massive continents of Europe and Asia. Three-month-old baby Gabriel cradled over my arms in a body that felt quite un-mine. There's an eerie stillness that covered the land in the white winter of 2020, still in the middle of the pandemic lockdowns, away from family, no friends, no art. Who am I? I am suddenly a new mother at 41 and a transplant from Manila to a new world, the storied city of Istanbul, formerly Constantinople, Byzantium. A romantic place perfect for the imagination, but difficult to penetrate like the robust Theodosian Long Walls…

AFTER MONTHS OF PREPARATION AND WORKSHOP MENTORING, the first TernoCon after several years away during the pandemic culminated in January at the brand new Tanghalang Ignacio Gimenez Black Box Theatre at the Cultural Center of the Philippines. Yssa Inumerable was crowned the winner of the third staging of TernoCon, receiving the newly titled Pacita Longos award for her interpretation of the Balintawak. Gabbie Sarenas was this year's runner-up, taking home the Pura Escurdia award, with Gladys Rose Pantua receiving the Ramon Valera award for third place. The terno has long been heralded as a hallmark of Filipino culture and heritage. The garment's origins tell the story of our own history; our past as a Spanish colony, and influences from Victorian England, Japan, and Latin America. There's perhaps no better example…

IN THIS ISSUE BLACK LIVES MATTER associated with Black Panther leader Huey Newton (and several other pop cultural icons), has carceral origins, woven by Bilibid prisoners in the early 20th century. At the time, the prison was quite the tourist spot for furniture shopping, and the fan-backed rattan chair produced by Filipino inmates was in fact originally known as the Bilibid Chair. Cullors and the abolitionist movement asks us to imagine a different world, one where systems that rely on punishment are replaced with systems rooted in dignity and care. The North Star bags weave wicker and poetry, women and history together in a way that she calls “abolitionist aesthetics,” which she explains is a way of looking at art and culture as a place to aestheticize abolition. “When we…

SENSE & SENSIBILITY Photographs by JOSEPH PASCUAL Fashion Editor DARYL CHANG PAGE 36 TEAM CREDITS: Makeup: Don de Jesus. Hair: Mong Amado. Producer: Anz Hizon. Stylist's Assistant: Ticia Almazan MODERN FINERY Photographs by AYA CABAUATAN Fashion Editor DARYL CHANG PAGE 44 TEAM CREDITS: Makeup: Mauri Estrada, Twinkle Bernardo of Estee Lauder. Hair: Arjay Zurita, MJ Rone of Estee Lauder. Model: Josefina Pascual, Sheila Francisco, Tessie Singson, Yrna Ileto. Production Design: Justine ArcegaBumanlag. Producer: Anz Hizon. Stylist's Assistant: Renee De Guzman OFF-KILTER UNIVERSE Photographs by PAOLO PINEDA PAGE 50 TEAM CREDITS: Makeup and Hair: Benjaporn Mophan. Model: Anna Unger of IM Agency. Stylist's Assistant: Wachiraporn Somkjun. Shot on location at Capitol Kempinski Hotel, Singapore SINGING THROUGH IT ALL Photographs by MITCHELL NGUYEN MCCORMACK Stylist KIMBERLY GOODNIGHT PAGE 62 TEAM CREDITS: Makeup: Kenna Reef. Hair: Dylan…