Photographed by Kim Santos for the February 2025 Issue of Vogue Man Philippines
In Baguio, Mark Wilson falls in love with the city and its crafts.
When Mark Wilson was finishing up an art history degree (with a minor in black & white photography) at Harvard, a casual stroll down the street toward the Fogg Museum triggered a seismic shift in his mind. During his walk, he suddenly became aware of how the sunlight set the leaves of a certain tree aglow. “This is my senior year in college and I’m thinking, ‘Wow. I’m seeing the world for the first time.’ The light was doing things I was really noticing, in a very 3D way.”
He attributes this observation to his study of image-making, which would impel him to pursue a master’s degree in lighting design at Parsons in New York, and later on, to start his own interior and lighting design firm. Creative senses don’t always surface from a young age, but having a businessman and pianist for a father and interior design and Filipino arts patron for a mother, it’s no surprise that Mark quickly inherited an appreciation for various creative forms. Not everyone grows up in a home surrounded by Joya and Zobel paintings, and an upright piano, electric piano, and two grand pianos after all.
It’s likely why, when the designer opens the doors to his Makati apartment, it exudes the spirit of a well-curated exhibit. The space is an eclectic display of objects old and new, painted and sculpted, found and made. Works by Filipino artists fill the walls, individually illuminated by lights that can be adjusted from cool to warm, bright to dim. Santos and Bulol figures of all sizes sit solemnly on multiple tabletops. It’s clear that Mark is a collector at heart, and in a way, it’s what encouraged a foray into jewelry making. In 2017, over lunch with the late curator, antique dealer, jeweler, and art historian Ramon Villegas, and Villegas’ partner Ver, the conversation came to the multihyphenate’s jewelry and wood workshop. “[Ramon] said, ‘You know where I’m doing very well, is in my jewelry and in my furniture restoration.’” A week later, Villegas passed. Eventually, his family held a private sale for jewelry he had accumulated over the years. Beholding these treasures, his dear friend’s words came back to Mark, and he decided to repurpose these finds into pieces that modern men and women could wear.
“With interior and lighting, you design in volumetric space. It’s rooms, it’s houses. But with jewelry, the scale is fine, it’s small. So I have to zoom in and out scale-wise,” he reflects. “And this designing in different scales forces me to think about how things are put together and made. Yet both are about proportion, scale, color, et cetera—all the same principles and elements of design exist in both disciplines. It’s about a human being wearing it or inhabiting a space.”
Called Caro Wilson, his jewelry label is named after his parents’ surnames. Though initially led by the question, “How can Filipinos wear the antique jewelry of our lolas today?” Mark has slowly steered the brand’s direction toward original designs, beginning from their signature Cordillera bracelets.
Albers ring to its right. Photographed by Geric Cruz for the February 2025 Issue of Vogue Man Philippines
A frequent visitor and lover of Baguio since childhood, Mark returned to woven rattan belts found in their markets, and its bracelet version meant to be souvenirs for tourists. Charmed by their form, which includes a toggle clasp holding two loops of braided rattan together, he thought of making them in gold and silver, and went on to scout workshops that could execute them.
Baguio, which was heralded a UNESCO Creative City in 2017, is home to various art expressions that include metal crafts. On the Baguio Creative Hub website, a brief history is chronicled: “In 1910, the Belgian Congregation of Missionaries of the Immaculate Heart of Mary ran a school with 10 little boys.” Six years later, a vocational workshop was launched for the same batch of boys, offering programs in carpentry, tailoring, leather craft, and silversmithing. The latter became the most popular, and, the page reads, “Their work in the silver shops paid for their high school education. As they became more adept in the craft, the sister taught them more intricate designs.”
At present, Caro Wilson collaborates with two silver workshops to bring their designs to life. One is dedicated to crafting their Cordillera bracelets, while the other executes designs in filigree, as well as their chains: the Hammerlink and Bicycle chain series. Both workshops are owned by men in their 30s who inherited the businesses from their mothers, who in turn learned from the Belgian nuns.
The making of a Cordillera bracelet is 16 weeks long, and starts with the pouring of metal onto a sheet before it’s cut into strips. The silver strands are woven by men in the workshop, who were taught by a master basket weaver. “He said you could do it with the metal, but weave it like it’s a basket,” Mark narrates. The initial prototype captured the roughness of the original rattan variety, and it took a year of sampling to get it to the shape they have now. The bracelets (and now earrings, necklaces, and rings) can be finished in silver, oxidized silver, or gold, which is available in 4 colors: yellow, red, pink, and white. “The fact that there’s variety in sizes, in finishes, in gold karat, gold color that’s created, like, a real collection that people can put their teeth into. And you can really see clients thinking, ‘What do I want?’ Once I introduced variations from the original 14mm wide bracelet it really took off.”
Two weeks after our apartment visit, we meet Mark again in Baguio. He tours us around Pilak Silvercraft and Gift Shoppe, the second workshop he partners with. There, we are introduced to Felix “Max” Aromein, a 61-year-old silversmith of 35 years who made the Hammerlink chain necklace that Mark currently has on. After demonstrating the use of their manual machines meant for rolling, flattening, cutting, and resizing metal, he says, “Hindi ka magiging platero kung hindi mo alam lahat ‘yan.” [You can’t become a metalsmith if you don’t know how to operate them all.]
Making our way up to the gift boutique, Mark walks us around the vast display of silver jewelry and trinkets, pointing out some of the intricate techniques they require. He also reflects on the value of continuous innovation, saying, “Design can keep the craft alive.”
Although his relationship with the City of Pines ran deep to begin with, it became even more meaningful over the course of the pandemic. Thinking it would last a month, Mark relocated from Metro Manila for what he thought was a temporary retreat. As that period gradually stretched to two years, he became overcome with loneliness. He recalls being one of only two occupants in the entire 16-room apartment complex. On his birthday, unable to leave Baguio or even have friends over, he invited the building manager and her son to his place, where they exchanged stories over a meal he cooked for them.
After days, weeks, and months of looking inward, he resolved to express the intimacies of his lonesome in the way he knows best. He created something beautiful and new. When Christmas came in 2021, he produced bamboo-abaca parols, a traditional symbol of hope. Under Caro Wilson, the parols have now been four years in production. That transformative period made him fall even deeper for the city. “So I’m in love with Baguio,” he declares mid-conversation. “I’ve always loved Baguio as a kid, but now that as a designer I’ve discovered the handskills…. it’s just my happy place. It’s a good place for me.”
Bracelets and parols aside though, there’s one more thing he learned to make while up there: Spotify playlists. Back in his Makati apartment, he puts one of them on as we gather around a table planning the next image on our shot list. Jack Harlow’s “First Class” blares through the speakers before a sweeter, more playful tune comes through. It’s “Ebeb” by the Filipino rap artist Flow G, an unexpected choice for the designer. Mark laughs at our surprise, pleased to have caught us off guard. He insists on how adorable the track is, so we tune in to the lyrics and hear verses of a hopeless romantic finally experiencing a love that brings pure bliss.
In the center of the room, Mark lays out woven bracelets for each of us to touch and try on, the smallest smile forming on his lips. It’s almost like the song has reminded him of his own blissful love, one he first found many years ago under the leaves of a sun-lit tree.
By TICIA ALMAZAN Photographs by GERIC CRUZ & KIM SANTOS. Art Director: Jann Pascua. Producer: Bianca Zaragoza. Fashion Associate: Neil de Guzman.
