MANILA, PHILIPPINES – “You must be crazy.” In the twelfth episode of adoboTalks Podcast | the business of creativity, Vogue Philippines Editor-in-Chief Bea Valdes shared that this was her reaction when she was first approached to helm the publication.
Bea is known for her status as a tastemaker and style icon. Her early 2000s debut as an accessories designer saw her bags and jewelry featured in the pages of the American Vogue, The New York Times, Harper’s Bazaar, and more.
Until now, the BEAVALDES brand is renowned for intricately handcrafted bags and accessories that embody heritage, sustainability, and slow fashion.
“I was very well-entrenched in what I was doing and loved doing that as well. And then they asked again and again. I said, ‘I don’t think it’s meant for me,’” she recounted.
And yet, here she is today, leading the prestigious Vogue Philippines.
In this podcast episode, Lessons from Things, it becomes clear exactly how this once “crazy” career shift now feels like the most natural extension of what kind of creative she is.
Craft as a history of things
“I think I’ve always had this affinity for things,” she said of her beginnings as a creative.
It became quickly clear that Bea didn’t mean she loved things just for the finished products they are. She had a passion for them as vessels of experience. It’s why the phrase “lessons from things,” an idea she came across while reading about a philosopher who wanted to catalogue the journey of objects, holds so much weight for her.
The acknowledgment of each item’s path has led to what she deems as one of the most crucial epiphanies she’s had on her design journey: “When you make something, a lot of it is these small, quiet challenges you have to problem-solve. There’s a lot of mistakes involved. So, [every finished piece became a] whole collection of lessons from things in itself.”
This perspective seems to also be what makes Vogue Philippines more than just a fashion magazine. Rather, it’s become a celebration of collective memory, culture, and human experiences through the lens of fashion.
After all, fashion, like all crafts, is a product of the lives and traditions that shaped it.
As Bea put it, “When you see the maker and you see all of the things that they’ve learned, it’s almost like you have human stories as told through the manipulation of material and gestures of design.”
So, exactly who are these makers? What are these human stories that needed telling? Answering these questions was crucial to the team’s first meeting on what the identity of Vogue Philippines should be. And the team decided that the answers to these questions weren’t just in Manila.
They would be ones they’d discover across the more than 7,000 islands of the archipelago.
The faces of cultural identity
“Our first issue was really a love letter to the Philippines, and we shot it [across] Luzon, Visayas, and Mindanao,” Bea said. “We just feel like we should tell the stories of as many people as we can. It wasn’t an avoidance of [Manila-centrism], but it’s just that there’s so much to see throughout our country.”
When she first visited the location of the Visayas shoot — the Biri Rock Formations in Samar — for the maiden issue, the team had gone ahead and she was about to follow them. Seeing her team on the majestic 23-million-year-old rock formations, with 150 meters of clashing waves between her and them, stirred something in Bea.
“I was saying to myself, ‘I can’t believe fashion can do this.’”
And she didn’t feel that way because it was a perfect backdrop to the clothes. It was more than a breathtaking view. The rocks, after all, were shaped by millennia of natural history — history our ancestors witnessed and co-existed with.
“So much of that story was really about our roots and about being in these islands,” she said. “It was important that we told the story of how connective [everything] is.”
This dedication to dig deeper into history through stories has led Vogue Philippines to come up with one-of-a-kind cover stories. The team knew that telling as many stories as possible meant pushing the boundaries of who can be a face of fashion, beauty, culture, and more.
Few instances capture that better than the now-iconic Apo Whang-Od cover.
When the team first discussed who should represent beauty for the April 2023 issue, the conversation was unanimous: the then-106-year-old Kalinga mambabatok (traditional Filipino tattoo artist). “We thought it would be very interesting for people to imagine her within the context of Vogue.”
“Interesting” ended up being an underestimation. The cover earned them 53 million impressions in the first few days, as well as over 80 international media pickups. The issue even had to be reprinted multiple times; it’s now firmly in “collector’s item” territory.
“It just goes to show how one image or one person’s story can sort of open up this whole narrative about more diverse stories or perspectives,” she reflected.
Another out-of-the-box but equally deserving covergirl was Rosie Sula, a National Living Treasure and master of Tboli chanting.
“To hear Rosie sing is so different from anything that you can say,” Bea expressed. “It is really sort of piercing and haunting … and you feel it, even though you don’t know what she’s saying.”
Bea and the team also covered stories of the community Rosie was part of in Lake Sebu, South Cotabato. “I’ve never met people who are so proud of their culture,” she recalled. “There’s a real understanding, a sense that they want to hold on to this tradition.”
“[The story was to] communicate that heritage is not something for a museum only,” she added. “It is living. It is alive.”
Environmental contexts and consequences of fashion
Discussions of craft’s roots also find a home in Vogue Philippines through the magazine’s dedication to sustainability. After all, learning about the history of a piece doesn’t just entail learning about culture. You also end up facing questions of its material origins and destinations: Where does it come from? And what happens to it after?
Over the years, Bea has particularly latched onto the idea that she wasn’t operating within a fashion industry. It was more of a fashion ecosystem.
“[For example,] the quality of the soil will affect the kind of cotton that you grow,” she explained. “And then when you design a piece, [it’s a matter of] having as little waste as possible. And when you do [have waste], what do you do with that?”
This is why Vogue Philippines has continued to champion resale, rental, and reworking vintage, as well as the idea that if you must buy, then invest in a piece intentionally.
We also see this advocacy show up in their pages as a celebration of designers, from Stella McCartney and her collection made of seaweed-based yarn, to Belgian-Filipina Soho Francotte, who’s experimenting with grape leather.
“There are all of these people who are really trying to forge their own way in any capacity,” she pointed out. “[Sustainability] doesn’t have to feel like a really unrelatable or big concept. We can break it down into small things.”
What makes the dream work
“[In 2019,] the then-26 Vogue editors had come together to say that they would lead with Vogue’s values, and these are inclusion and diversity, sustainability, always celebrating craft and creativity. And I said, ‘Well, that is very much aligned with the things that I would love to continue to pursue.’”
“It’s not just my ethos. Many of the team members really, really believe in this,” she clarified. “It was something we were all invested in, and the opportunity to tell stories through those lenses … we thought it was such a wonderful challenge to have.”
It’s also the team that calmed her fear of taking on the role. She was promised she’d be “sandwiched” between Managing Editor Jacs Sampayan and the president of the company, both with decades in publishing, who would guide her through the mechanics of the industry.
“They have been such mentors throughout this whole experience. But I think it’s not just them.” Bea mentioned other established names who have guided her throughout the process, from Deputy Director Pam Quiñones to Features Editor Audrey Carpio. She even shared that the team was filled with young, talented creatives that joined Vogue Philippines as their first job. “There’s all different kinds of levels, and we are all there to learn from each other, and it makes it such a dynamic work.”
“We’re a whole bunch of different personalities but with no egos. It’s always been very collaborative. It’s this thing where everybody puts in the extra mile that has helped us go very far.”
For her, it’s this team that really keeps the publication on track towards its editorial north star: to surprise and delight the reader. “We like to give a very insider point of view …. The team is so creative and so adventurous. I love the way they can take a perspective that is just so different, maybe from left field.”
With that said, it seems like Vogue Philippines’ recipe for success lies in the team’s eye aligning with what Bea believes to be at the heart of storytelling: “The power of storytelling is really being able to find that thing that is important within something …. It’s that ability to find the universe in a grain of sand …. You can find something important no matter what, you just have to be able to dig a little bit deeper.”
Catch the insightful conversation with Bea Valdes on Episode 12 of the adoboTalk Podcast on Spotify, YouTube, and Soundcloud. The adoboTalks Podcast | the business of creativity, is presented by adobo Magazine, the word on creativity and produced in partnership with The Pod Network and Hit Productions.
