Photographed by JV Rabano for the March 2026 Issue of Vogue Philippines
Through experimentation and refinement, Steph Verano develops garments that sit between ready-to-wear and bespoke.
For Steph Verano, fashion begins the moment the needle pierces the fabric. Early in her career, she envisioned pursuing haute couture until a former tutor encouraged her to consider a more ready-to-wear direction. What surfaced from that suggestion was neither purely custom nor entirely conventional, but something in between. “My brand resulted in a hybrid,” she explains, “probably a result of me trying to always balance tradition and nostalgia with experimentation and modern production systems.”
In the beginning, Verano admits she was uncertain where her style belonged in the market. Now she sees that ambiguity through a different pair of eyes, leaning into her strengths of pattern cutting and textile development. “Comparing the beginning with the uncertainty of which category it belongs to, I feel more confident presenting it now as an accumulation of years’ work of soul searching.”
She approaches the art of design with cutting precision. “Clothes need to be well-made. Beautiful things take time,” she says. The brand, for her, is less about following the zeitgeist and more about independently honing her craft. “My goal is to make beautiful work. I’m interested in learning and improving my skills as I work on the brand.”
That openness shapes the way the label evolves with each collection. “My brand grows with me,” Verano confesses. She designs through curiosity rather than strict rules about identity. “I usually make things that I’m interested to figure out, and I don’t try to dwell too much on whether some things fit the brand identity. Everything will come together eventually.”
Verano sketches, patterns, drapes, and creates samples in one continuous movement, merging design, research, and stitching into the same session. “Life and work is one and the same,” she says. Sometimes a garment appears within days, adapted from an existing piece, while bespoke designs may take several fittings with the client.
Looking ahead, she hopes to expand her menswear portfolio while strengthening her signature womenswear pieces. Beyond fashion collections, another possibility lingers in her mind. A dream project, she says, would be costume design for film or dance.
For Verano, clothing truly reveals itself in motion. Garments, she says, “come alive when worn.”
