Rina and Jo Ann wear YOHJI YAMAMOTO button down shirts, skirts, and deconstructed coats. Photograph by Sharif Hamza.
LE NGOK bubble wrap dress crafted from the designer’s own collection of discarded bubble wrap, as well as those donated by her neighbors and other building tenants. Photograph by SHARIF HAMZA
To mark its first anniversary, Vogue Philippines explores the Batanes highlands as ground zero of the Filipino people.
Batanes is closer to Taiwan than it is to Manila, and a romantic drama was made based on this proximity. The film Batanes: Sa Dulo ng Walang Hanggan tells how a Taiwanese fisherman, played by F4 idol Ken Chu, gets caught in one of the region’s infamous storms and is washed up on an island in Batanes, where he happens to be discovered by Iza Calzado. The film happens to parallel the first arrival of the Austronesians in the Philippine archipelago. Four thousand years ago, groups of people from Taiwan crossed the Bashi Channel in outrigger-less boats and settled the islands of Batanes. There, they have come to be known as the Ivatan and they are our ancestors, as well as the ancestors of some 400 million people across the Pacific and in Madagascar and Borneo.
For Vogue Philippines’ maiden issue cover story, we shot wide—visiting beautiful locations in Luzon, Visayas, and Mindanao in order to represent our whole country. In the year that followed, we tried to commit to this ethos of being as inclusive as we can when telling our stories, recognizing the many different ways of being Filipino. To mark the beginning of our second year, we went deep—highlighting the Batanes highlands as ground zero of the Filipino people. We hope to continue digging into our roots and searching for things that may have been lost to us, from ancient techniques to traditional craft that show how rich we were as a people, not just materially but in spirit and wisdom.
Photographing a fashion editorial in this landscape proved quite tricky. If you look at the photos, the models are all throughout wearing these locally woven abaca tukap sandals (made in the Sabtang village of Chavayan, they are wittily called Chavayanas.) This stylistic choice happened only as we began shooting, when it became apparent that it was impossible for the women to pose wearing sky-high platform Marc Jacobs boots on in incline, without falling into a pile of dung or worse, off a cliff. We adapted to the environment. Batanes was telling us what to do.
One thing we couldn’t adapt to, however, was the intense noonday heat on Sabtang island. Even Sharif’s camera was overheating. To combat the weather, Ivatan women traditionally wear a vakul— headgear made of long strands of shredded date palm leaves, resembling blonde straw wigs. Worn by farmers out on the field, the vakul keeps one’s head cool and also protects it from rain, similar to how the cogon thatch roof works. But that sweltering July day was definitely one of the hottest, if not the hottest day on the planet, and only a vakul made of ice could help our situation. The crew decided to cut the visit short and return to Batan island right away, because it was senseless to make the models don the heavy, multi-layered outfits under the blazing sun.
In more comfortable conditions, people began opening up to each other during downtime in between shoots. We found out that Rina Fukushi was a big anime fan (Evangelion is her favorite and she was looking forward to dressing up as Rei for Halloween). We learned that the tattoo on Lukresia’s neck is Baybayin script for “bayot boang” and a reminder for her to stay true to her freaky self. We listened to Jo Ann Bitagcol recount her journey from being a factory girl to a model to a photographer to a designer and now, for Vogue Philippines, a model again. Melissa Levy, who styled the editorial, shared how her early childhood was largely spent in the wilds of Palawan, where her family lived before moving to Australia.
Batanes welcomed us all, but it also challenged us to work with nature and think hard about the environment we are creating. And after a swarm of flies invaded the photoshoot on our last day, maybe Batanes was also telling us that we were beginning to smell like cow poop.
By Audrey Carpio. Photographs by Sharif Hamza. Fashion Director: Pam Quiñones. Styling: Melissa Levy. Makeup: Gery Peñaso. Hair: Mong Amado. Models: Jo Ann Bitagcol, Lukresia, Rina Fukushi. Nails: New Lounge PH. Art Director: Jann Pascua. Producer: Anz Hizon. Production Assistants: Bianca Zaragoza, Patricia Co. Photographer’s Assistants: Choi Narciso, JV Rabano, Tim Hoffman. Stylist’s Assistants: Neil De Guzman, Renee De Guzman. Makeup Assistant: Ejjay Salcedo. Hair Assistant: Jeremi Nuqui. Intern: Sophia Lanawan. Shot on location at Fundacion Pacita. Special thanks to Patsy Abad and the National Commission on Indigenous Peoples.
