Photograph by Colin Dancel for the October 2024 Issue of Vogue Philippines
“Beauty is power,” goes a line from a Sondheim musical. But for a country whose idea of beauty is rooted in power, the line probably bears reversal: Power is beauty.
When Chelsea Manalo was crowned Ms. Philippines Universe 2024, the 24-year old beauty from Meycauan, Bulacan broke a glass ceiling: she was the first Filipino of African-American descent to win the contest. When her name was announced as the winner of perhaps the most gleeful, the most confetti-sprayed of all Filipino battlegrounds, this writer could not have cheered any louder, and could not have been more properly surprised. Chelsea Manalo was not your traditional beauty contest queen, at least not in the Philippines.
For a nation obsessed with whiteness, or, at least whitening products (and their coy implications on skin tone preference), Manalo’s win was unprecedented. While three mestizas of mixed heritage have won the Ms. Universe contest in less than a decade—all of them with Caucasian mix—here was another kind of mestiza: her skin a deeper, duskier shade of morena.
For a country thrice-colonized, this means beauty standards that have been influenced by two Caucasian countries—Spain and America for a joint three hundred and eighty-one years—and an Asian one, having been occupied by Japan for four years during World War II.
This may account for beauty standards that have been predominantly Caucasian since the turn of the past century, and Asian for the past decade and a half when the Korean Hallyu wave swept the country (Korea, incidentally, was also colonized by Japan before it was split into hemispheres).
From these examples alone, we can trace the changing face of beauty in our country, one which has had a wide and sweeping range, and a thing or two do with power. Perhaps the changing face of beauty has everything to do with the changing face of power.
It can be argued that our colonizing power these days is social media, which has given us, thankfully, an ever-evolving and ever-various notion of beauty. Which is not to say that it isn’t immune to dark excesses, but that’s another story. Suffice it to say that it has been the most democratic, all-encompassing platform we have; it tells us what electrolytes to pump into our system every morning before the daily grind, and where to find underground French restaurants in Makati, all while brandishing reels about bookstores that are also bars, and bunkers believed to be hiding fugitives.
“At its best,” says VMV Hypoallergenics CEO Laura Verallo De Bertotto, “social media is a way to open doors to beauty and appreciation.” Since the explosion of social media, the world has been more open to many more ranges of looks and skin tones, she says.
This is an incontestable point: consider how social media has subverted the notion that women’s beauty standards are linked to youth. The changing face of beauty can also be gauged by the comeback of 90’s runway and television queens on social media. Who in recent years have looked as glorious as a bare-faced Pamela Anderson and a silver-haired Paulina Porizkova on Instagram?
Consider also someone like model Valerie Celis, whose arresting beauty enables her to be “versatile and mysterious in a predominantly white industry.”
Celis is a shining example of how flipping a popular script can also mean harking back to the Austronesian sub-group we Filipinos belong to. There’s also Paolo Roldan, the first Vogue Man Philippines cover model, who is an incredibly chiseled moreno who can wear a fishnet sando with such ease it might as well be his second skin. Both are international models whose profiles you can see on social media.
Filipino beauty is not just a casual by-product of our heritage; it could also very well be a universal standard. We are giving ourselves our own kind of power, not to choose from just two standards of beauty, but to celebrate the rich heritage this beauty springs from.
And then, there is the beauty of cultural treasure Whang-Od who has preserved the mambabatok culture as a centenarian, and Dolores Ramirez, a nonagenarian Filipino geneticist.
If we are looking for a Filipino metaphor for a beauty standard, Ramirez has unwittingly supplied it. Genetics, she says, is a basic science. In an interview for Vogue Philippines in August 2023, an issue she was the cover of, she has said that in genetic science, “you can create something new. In plants, for example, you can produce a new variety that has more yield, is more attractive or beautiful, or more resistant to stresses.”
She could have been describing the Filipina beauty, a new but also age-old variety, a hybrid marvel of nature that has been in existence since our pre-colonial and colonial history. Power is beauty, indeed.
By MOOKIE KATIGBAK-LACUESTA Photographs by COLIN DANCEL, HAROLD JULIAN, & ARTU NEPOMUCENO. Makeup by MICKEY SEE. Hair by JERRY JAVIER. Beauty Editor JOYCE OREÑA. Stylist: Perry Tabora. Talent: Chelsea Manalo. Art Director: Jann Pascua. Producer: Bianca Zaragoza. Beauty Writer: Bianca Custodio. Lighting Director: Joey Alvero. Projectionist Bimpoman Gaffer and Grip: Jhay R Baylon. Retoucher: Dan Durante. Casting: Eric Cano. Stylist Associate: Kris de Leon. Production Assistants: Frankie Tan. Flora: Stylist: Ise White. Make-up: Eric Vosburg. Hair: Ryuta Sayama. Model: Valerie Celis. Casting: Eric Cano. Stylist’s Assistant: Anabel Fischer. Hair Assistant: Narumi Baba. Shot on location at Chrome15 Studio at Mana Contemporary. Apo Whang Od: Sittings Editor: Audrey Carpio. Producer: Anz Hizon. Production Assistants: Jojo Abrigo, Marga Magalong, Renee De Guzman. Photographer’s Assistants: Aaron Carlos, Choi Narciso, Sela Gonzales. Special thanks to the National Commission on Indigenous Peoples. Paolo Roldan: Creative Director & Stylist: Meg Manzano. Shoot Assistants: Aaron Carlos, Choi Narciso, Jorsette Vallespin.
