Inside Day One of Vogue Threads Manila 2025: Mentorship, Community, and Fashion Beyond Trends

The opening day of masterclasses at Vogue Threads Manila 2025 sets the tone with Pam Quiñones in conversation with Trickie Lopa; Bea Valdes, Jann Pascua, and Jacs Sampayan on the collective spirit behind Vogue Philippines’ third-anniversary issue; and Quiñones and Mark Nicdao on making a defining fashion image.

Vogue Threads Manila 2025 opens with Pam Quiñones in conversation with Trickie Lopa in a session that traces styling as a form of authorship. Quiñones recalls her beginnings in Cotabato City and later in Milan, where she first encountered the discipline interning at a Dsquared2 fashion show. She shares the memory of seeing a woman in a red dress cycling through Spain, an image that defined fashion as a lived experience. For Quiñones, styling emerges as a practice that requires instinct, resourcefulness, and imagination, whether in creating editorials, shaping celebrity images, or directing commercial campaigns. She frames styling not as surface arrangement, but as a way of telling stories through clothes.

In the afternoon, the focus turns to the making of Vogue Philippines’ third-anniversary September Issue, a landmark 422-page edition. Editors Bea Valdes, Jann Pascua, and Jacs Sampayan frame the milestone through the Filipino concept of kapwa, or shared selfhood, which they describe as central to the magazine’s vision. Valdes emphasizes that image-making is always collaborative, remarking that it “takes a whole village to create an image.” Pascua shares how the six limited-edition covers were conceived to reflect multiplicity, with narratives spanning diaspora voices, ecological themes, and symbols such as the dragonfly, regarded as an indicator of environmental health. Sampayan adds that the issue functions as a weaving of stories, of identity, mentorship, and community, that together form a portrait of Filipino creativity today.

The day concludes with the “Making the Fashion Image” masterclass, where Quiñones returns to the stage with photographer Mark Nicdao. Their conversation unpacks the dynamics between stylist and photographer, showing how vision and trust converge to shape enduring visuals. Nicdao reflects on the importance of connection with his subjects, while Quiñones stresses the intuition that guides her work. Both describe image-making as a process of collaboration, built on instinct, experimentation, and the energy exchanged in the moment.

Discover more of the highlights from day one of Vogue Threads Manila 2025 below.

By LAWRENCE ALBA. Photographs by ANIKEN DELA CRUZ. Digital Associate Editor: Chelsea Sarabia. Producer: Bianca Zaragoza. Multimedia artists: Bea Lu, Myc Priestley.

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