Tales from the Diaspora: Celebrating Filipino Culture in Britain

Meet accessories designer Benny Andallo, Kapihan’s Nigel and David Motley, emerging director Gabby Lauren, artist Laksmi Hussein, and football team Rise United, Filipinos who are doing their part to celebrate Filipino culture in Britain and beyond.

Nobody tells you how to balance two worlds. It is both beautiful and burdensome to occupy multiple spaces without compromising some essential part of yourself, and interrogating the concept of belonging. This is true for many of us with immigrant footprints, who grow up or live in a country foreign from the heritage of our ancestors.

More specifically, when your parents come from The Philippines, but you’re growing up in a country like England, it can be brutally hard to develop a rooted sense of identity. You barely see yourself represented anywhere outside of your home, or even within your own family. When you’re a child, and nobody else looks like you in your immediate environment, it’s easy to get tied up in shame, confusion, and give into the urge to blend in.

I speak from personal experience.

Raised in ‘90s London by Filipino parents, I had a largely joyful, occasionally traumatic, upbringing in Britain. This is a country where hundreds of thousands of Filipinos propped up the public healthcare system and moved in domestic silence behind the doors of the rich and famous, but were rarely portrayed with dignity or diversity in British media. Thirty years later, the Filipino community, by far the largest Southeast Asian migrant group in the United Kingdom, still lacks accurate depiction in books, film, and TV.

As a teenager I pursued journalism. Our stories, rich and nuanced, deserved to be heard. My efforts were not isolated: across the capital, my first-and second-generation British-Filipino counterparts were navigating their own identities, finding ways to tell their unique stories in their own voices.

Real representation of Filipinos is something we’ve not historically had in Britain, so we felt that it was up to us to create it. When identity is in flux, you create, solidify, and stabilize it, whether consciously and intentionally. This is exactly what my generation of Filipinos raised in the UK from the late ‘80s, ‘90s, and noughties are doing. We’re carving out our legacies here and claiming them loudly, with a pride we were often denied as children.

For this project, which was inspired by the seminal novels of Carlos Bulosan and Elaine Castillo, we spoke to British-Filipino trailblazers across sport, food, fashion, film, and art. Getting to explore their creative spaces and discover how they have amplified their Filipino heritage through their work. It has been an emotional journey of healing, empowerment, and defiance.

The Philippines is in the heart. We are all doing our part to elevate and celebrate Filipino culture in Britain, and beyond.

Mad hatter Benny Andallo spices up British headwear with his fuzzy chapeaus. Photographed by Lloyd Ramos for the March 2025 Issue of Vogue Philippines
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Benny Andallo
This accessories designer from London creates larger-than-life faux-fur hat pieces that have earned him recognition in the fashion world. Worn by the likes of Rihanna to FKA Twigs to Burna Boy, Benny’s designs inhabit the diasporic experience, reinterpreting headpieces like the quintessentially British baker hat or flat cap in a way that makes English culture his own. “Baker hats were a signal of the working class and also have relations to the royal family. It’s a nod of Britishness, a cultural clash,” he says. “I’ve reinterpreted them in a way that makes me feel free, as a fusion of diaspora, and as a visual landscape of the London I grew up in.”
Nigel Motley serves barako coffee and pan de sal in the sibling-run coffee shop Kapihan in Battersea. Photographed by Lloyd Ramos for the March 2025 Issue of Vogue Philippines
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Kapihan
A family-run café and bakery in the heart of Battersea, Kapihan was founded by British-Filipino brothers Nigel and David Motley. It draws a diverse and loyal crowd in the local community, and has helped Londoners fall in love with Filipino coffee culture. Famed for their bibingka, pandesal, and artisanal coffee beans, their Lolo Ruperto was the inspiration behind the beloved coffee shop. Nigel says that, for him, Pinoy pride is about quiet confidence, perseverance, and acceptance. “With Kapihan, we didn’t want to wave the flag in people’s faces,” he explains. “We use world-class ingredients, and we’re not portraying the Philippines in a romanticised way; the coffee shop is a familiar setting for everyone.”
Gabby Lauren is an emerging filmmaker whose style she describes as “sentimental, chaotic, comforting, and tender.” Photographed by Lloyd Ramos for the March 2025 Issue of Vogue Philippines
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Gabby Lauren
An emerging director, Gabby explores what it means to be British-Filipino through her heartfelt, soulful, and microcosmic work centered on storytelling. While creating, she asks herself vital questions like “who does my work serve” and “am I telling an authentic story?” “Growing up, my Filipino side was often neglected; I didn’t feel proud of it,” the filmmaker says. “But I’ve since found that it’s unique to be British-Filipino, because you’re holding two cultures, which is beautiful. I want to create more stuff that my younger self didn’t get to see, and to let my 16-year-old self know that I’m enough.”
Laksmi Hussein, whose palette of blue stems from a memory of her mother. Photographed by Lloyd Ramos for the March 2025 Issue of Vogue Philippines
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Laksmi Hussein
Known as Laxmi, she is a Filipino-Indian artist and painter whose creative practice serves as an invaluable means of reclaiming her identity. Inspired to make art after seeing the ‘irrepressible joy in creativity’ shown by her children, Laxmi explores the tenderness of motherhood and the natural shapes and evolution of the female form throughout life through her work. In her art, the shades of blue stem from a powerful memory of her late mother, on a sunny day in Pangasinan, stepping off a bangka in a double-denim ensemble. “As a Filipino, I am part of such an incredible group of people, and only Filipinos can relate to that,” she says. “It’s a culture of love. Those tender, soft moments that have come before: feelings, emotions, ancestry, craft, and beauty are present in my lineage. For me, love is how I share who I am.”
Rise United has created a safe space where football lovers can celebrate their heritage. Photographed by Lloyd Ramos for the March 2025 Issue of Vogue Philippines
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Rise United
This mixed-gender ESEA+ (East South East Asian) football team is based in London with community at its core. Embedded within Rise United is Sinigang FC, a subteam of Filipinos who share a love for football, food, and friendship. Lorenzo Landicho recounts, “I’ve always wanted to be that positive representation and ambassador for Filipinos. I’d tell my 16-year-old self that the things I’d written down for my future self to do; I’ve done them all. I’d say, ‘Keep going, growth isn’t linear; you’re going to have a wild ride’.” The individual diversity between the six teammates we spoke with from Sinigang FC (ranging from DJs to models to designers) critically reinforces the heterogeneity of British-Filipino identity and creativity. Members include Joshua Landicho, Paolo Babaran, Lara Swift, Lorenzo Landicho, Claire Ting and Logan Nalani DiFranco. “As Filipinos, we put our hearts on our sleeve. We show people what we’re about, we’ve got confidence and swag. There’s so much substance in everyone’s story. Filipino culture is still quite introductory here. But now there’s more conversations, initiatives and communities to get involved with,” Paolo shares. Melissa Legarda-Alcantara is a British-Filipino writer and producer from London. She co-hosts Eastern Hunnies, a podcast that celebrates the ESEA diaspora in Britain.