The Couchella Effect: Monique
Couple of photos from the super fun personal style portrait session that I did for my friend Monique Rosal a few weeks ago. This wasn’t my first time to photograph this girl. I’d shot her some two years ago, at a time when I had had very little experience, and thus had had very little technical know-how (i.e., white balance and ISO settings and all that other good stuff had baffled me), not to mention I’d had to share the job with a bunch of other photographers and so I couldn’t exercise full creative control when it came to the locations, etc. Guess it goes without saying that the resulting photos from that shoot had turned out really bad—well, maybe not that bad, but definitely something I couldn’t be proud of—and so I’d promised her I’d take her pictures again. Which brought us to this session right here. I think it’s important to be ready to extend your subjects the courtesy of reshooting, especially when you yourself are not happy with your shots—you might argue that you’d rather wait for them to tell you they’re not satisfied with your work, but the truth is not a lot of people are going find it easy to do that, so, essentially, you’re just gonna have to be honest with yourself. Trust me, it’ll only do you good—so long, of course, as you stay sensitive to your shooting schedule and other appointments. Monique here had had to wait almost two years for an opening in my schedule, but that was alright, because what mattered was we got around to doing it!
This whole thing came at a perfect time, too, because she was starting to be obsessed with Tumblr, and she wanted to be able to post original photos and to keep the “reblogging” to a minimum. (I might also convince her to go on Lookbook.nu—Monique, remind me to send you an invite, OK?) The idea was to photograph her in her own clothes, or in clothes that reflected her personality, because we didn’t want to make the same mistake we’d made the last time wherein we’d made her raid her friends’—and even her mom’s—closets. My first impulse was to ask her to wear surfer chick-inspired clothes and then drag her off to a beach setting, if only to satisfy my own Tumblr obsession (the Billabong Girls USA Tumblr site is one of the very few sites that I follow), but then I realized that dictating her would defeat the purpose of a personal style shoot. Besides, she confessed that, although she did like the beach, she really was more of a rocker chick. For days we’d been talking about Coachella, the music festival held every spring in Southern California, how it had been a mutual dream of ours to attend it one day (and how I had been foolish for being in L.A. last year and turning down invites to weekend two), and that was how we arrived at an idea: why not have her show up at the shoot in clothes that she could see herself wearing to the desert music fest if she were given the chance to make that scene one day? I’m looking at these photos now and laughing at the fact that this “DIY Coachella” thing has since been given a name—“Couchella,” which is basically the act of “sitting on your couch and dreaming you were at Coachella”—but we had so much fun that afternoon! And I loved the clothes she was able to round up for the session, especially the vintage babydoll dress in eggshell lace—very Free People-y! Delighted me to no end, too, that she chose to wear everything with her brand spanking new 1490 10-eye Doc Martens—I always love it when there’s a little grunge or ‘90s involved.
Speaking of grunge/’90s, the Smashing Pumpkins T-shirts that you see her wearing here are actually mine (yes, I collect Smashing Pumpkins T-shirts, and I consider them a prized collection—some of these shirts I got when I first saw the band live at the Louisville Palace for the third leg of their summer 2008 tour). It was kind of spur-of-the-moment, really—in the middle of our shoot I remembered that she loved the Pumpkins to death (last year she and a couple of friends literally braved a storm by flying to Manila to see Billy et al. at the Araneta Coliseum despite the torrential rains and floods), and so I was quick to snatch a couple of T-shirts from my closet so I could take photos of her in them. Of course, as you can see here, they look a hundred times better on her than they do on me, but that doesn’t mean I’m letting her keep them!
She wanted me to take a few photos of the new tattoo between her shoulder blades (of three cassette tapes with their media spewed out to form a G-clef, a not-so-subtle declaration of her love for music), and that’s how things took a turn for the, um, boudoir. I’d never done a boudoir session before in my life—perhaps the closest I’d gotten to doing one was when I’d photographed Womb frontwoman Chai Fonacier’s naked back during their album cover shoot (also to pinpoint a back tattoo)—but, hey, anything’s worth trying, right? Thank God the girl was ready with really cute undergarments! I had to be real careful with my approach, though, by thinking less FHM and more Agent Provocateur catalog—this way I was assured the photos were gonna come out sassy, not sleazy. Sure enough, they turned out really nice, but I can only post a few on here—I’m sorry, but I still have a little bit of a gentleman in me, and that little bit of a gentleman is saying that everything else should be for her eyes only.
Now I’m torn ‘cause I can’t decide which is sexier: leaving something for the imagination, or having a healthy enough self-image to have no problem baring a little for the camera. When I’d first taken Monique’s photos two years ago, she’d seemed a little tense, if not squeamish, and it would show in her face, and in the way she’d moved (or not moved, for that matter), and that was actually one of the reasons why the resulting photos from that shoot had left much to be desired. This time, however, it was as if it was a totally different girl standing in front of me: calmer, more composed, and thus more radiant—still aware of her flaws, but was mature enough to just laugh about them. I asked her what had changed, and she shared that she’d been taking yoga classes for months now. It’s amazing what a renewed commitment to fitness can do to you—not just physically to your body, but to how you feel about yourself, as well. And nothing is more beautiful to photograph than someone who is clearly comfortable in their own skin.
Monique Rosal | Photographed by Angelo Kangleon in Cebu City, Cebu, on March 24, 2013 | Hair and makeup by Alex Nicole Lorenzana | Special thanks to Christine L. Abragan
To Womb It May Concern
Always I’ve considered photographing musicians to be a big deal. Not so much because music has kind of been a huge part of my life (like I mentioned in a previous post, I was raised in a household where musicality was, for the most part, the glue when all else failed, and I also happened to play an active role—as band publicist and rock writer—when the Cebu music scene reached its peak during the late ‘90s/early 2000s), and not so much because I am a frustrated musician (yes, I did try to pick up the piano and the guitar, but they didn’t like me very much), but because most of the great photographers that I’ve admired from the start—Herb Ritts, Annie Leibovitz, et al.—have produced some of their most memorable images by collaborating with musical artists. So imagine my excitement when I was commissioned to do this band’s photos! And for their debut album cover, no less! Of course, I foamed at the mouth a little—OK, a lot—when the folks at 22 Tango Records, with whom this band is signed to, announced that they were signing me up for this project. It was all sorts of emotions rushing through my veins, like I was about to be reunited with a long-lost friend, or like I was about to get a new tattoo! I mean, things like this don’t happen to me everyday—or at all to some people! Finally, here was my chance to tick one off my list of dream projects!
Although this was my first time to photograph a band, this wasn’t my first time to work in a photo shoot that involved musicians. Back in the day I’d used to do tag along with the now-defunct Glitch to the shoots for most of their magazine appearances following their signing to OctoArts EMI. Some five years ago I’d helped style Urbandub bassist Lalay Lim for the album cover shoot for the band’s fourth album Under Southern Lights (EMI Philippines). And then just a little over a year ago I’d styled—and shot, as “second shooter” to my mentor Malou Pages—singer-songwriter Cattski for the album cover of her latest release 0:00:00. It was being exposed to these kinds of assignments that had left an impression in my creative psyche, and that had showed me that there was a certain quality to doing portraits for musicians that you just didn’t get when you were photographing regular, non-musical folk, or even models (to me one exception would be Ford Models Supermodel of the World-Philippines 2001 titleholder Marjay Ramirez, of course, because that girl is just a rock star in her own right). “It’s all about charisma,” an ex-DJ friend had told me at one point, “that one thing that, even when they’re just standing there, makes everything else around them freeze in time.” And for the longest time that became one of my favorite stories to tell: how, during the aforementioned Urbandub shoot, we’d picked an unexceptional location—just a prosaic patch of arid land in the North Reclamation area, a few steps from where they’d begun erecting the new Cebu Doctors’ University—and how the props had looked unimpressive—just a dusty old leather couch that had presumably been snatched from Lalay’s father’s office—but once the band had stepped into photographer Charles Buenconsejo’s frame the whole scenery just…transformed. “That’s the thing about musicians,” I would tell my friends over and over again, “they have this certain air about them that just takes over, and then commands the picture.”
Funny thing then that when I began work on this project I seemed to forget about that whole “charisma” thing and ended up burying myself neck-deep in preparations for the concept, locations and the props. Perhaps it was anxiety in my part, knowing I had to do a damn good job because (1) this was my first solo photography project that involved musicians, and (2) I needed to redeem myself in the eyes of these people because when I’d been commissioned to do the photos of another 22 Tango Records artist (Undercover Grasshoppers) a couple of months back that had turned out to be, in Facebook parlance, an “epic fail” (i.e., it never materialized). I think that, in the four weeks that I was given to prepare for this whole thing, only 20 or 30 percent of that time was spent talking to the band, and the other 70 or 80 percent was spent overthinking the concept!
The band is called Womb, and the music that they make is predominantly trip hop/folktronica/experimental rock—this in itself contributed to my urge to devise a crack concept, because I figured, hey, not a lot of artists in this part of the world were doing this kind of sound, so I better come up with images that would further set them apart from their peers. The overthinking officially set in after they told me they were baptizing their album Anesthesiac, and my first reaction was, “How very clinical!” I proceeded to ruminate, What is it with trip hop/electronica and its affinity to the clinical/medical? My immediate case in point: Massive Attack’s 1998 hit “Teardrop” as backdrop to the anatomy-themed opening sequence of the Fox medical drama House, M.D. I thought to myself, I have to come up with something as clever as that!
I became so relentless in my quest for the textbook clinical/medical theme that I ended up spending two full weeks going around town and pulling some old strings, ringing my friends from college (yes, I went to med school) and every single doctor I knew to see if the hospitals they worked in would allow me to borrow a couple of old gurneys that were no longer being used, or even an ambulance truck. I even mooched a couple of straitjacket-looking garments off a friend who was into that kind of stuff (did you know there’s a local clothing brand called Mental who actually makes these kinds of clothes?). This was the sick scenery that I was beginning to paint in my head, you see: three dilapidated, rusty gurneys, one for each band member, smack in the middle of a grassy field that’s dry as bone, and the band in straitjackets, with spaced-out looks in their faces. Alas, it turned out I was in for not just a bumpy ride, but for a fruitless crusade as well: my liaisons told me that none of the hospitals were willing to grant me the use of their old gurneys, not even the ones that were begging to be thrown to the junk shop! They also were not willing to lend us an ambulance truck! I wondered if it had something to do with medical ethics in the general sense, kind of like how, as I was told my by friends who are nurses, you were not allowed to use a nurse’s uniform for a conceptual shoot, even if didn’t involve any sleaze (exactly the reason why, for the Pearl Harbor-inspired engagement shoot that we did back in June, we decided to shelve the 1950s nurse costume that we’d had made in Manila).
When it became painfully clear that I was never going to get the straitjacket-and-gurney diorama that I wanted, and we had less than two weeks left until the actual shoot date, I decided to just roll with the punches and reach into my back pocket for Plan B. And that’s how we came up with all that you see right here. No gurneys? Fine! Give me a hotel room and a hotel bed! Luckily, a close friend of the producer was set to throw a little hotel room party over at the old Montebello Villa Hotel down Banilad, and she said we could have the place to ourselves the morning after. We did three sets at the hotel. It was my way of playing safe—you know, just in case the first and the second didn’t work then we still had a third one to fall back on. Everything that we did in that cramped 250-square-foot space could be summarized as an alchemy of influences and interpretations. The set where I had them don white bathrobes and order room service breakfast, that was me thinking of the lines “And in the morning/ I render numb the tongue that asks for an encore” from their song “Aftertaste,” and taking a cue from that circa 1975 Annie Leibovitz photograph of an emaciated, bathrobe-clad Mick Jagger in a Buffalo, NY, hotel elevator. The set where I had them fool around with party hats, party blowouts, some confetti, and a bottle of Scotch, a projection of my fascination with the whole hotel room trashing thing (except we had to go easy on the trashing part, because we were only borrowing the room, remember?); and the part where I had the frontwoman Chai Fonacier wear a Mickey Mouse hat (and old one of mine from one of my trips to Anaheim Disneyland, and I just wrapped the ears in sequined fabric to make it look a bit outré) was inspired by that 1987 Herb Ritts photograph of Madonna wearing Mickey Mouse ears (shot in Tokyo). Finally, the set where I had Chai show a little skin was inspired by another song of theirs called, well, “Skin,” that goes: “Shadows playing on skin/ the closest to a touch/ A fleeting glance; a fading epitaph/ Your skin: the graveyard of desire.” (Perfect, too, that Chai had just gotten a brand spanking new tattoo on her upper back!) Oh, and if all the hotel room photos have kind of a ménages à trois vibe to them, that might have been because I wanted to allude to a line from another song of theirs, “30th and 1st,” that goes: “I understand the mechanisms of a triangle.”
It all turned out alright after all. You see, while I was taking the first few shots my mind wasn’t completely in the right there and then, as all I could think of was the straitjacket-and-gurney scene that I had originally envisioned. But, boy, were the band ever their element! Whether or not they felt good about the setup(s), they didn’t show it, or that didn’t matter to them—what mattered was that they felt good about themselves, and that was what they wanted to come through in the pictures. They were professional in a way that none of us—not even their producers—had ever seen before. And that’s how the pictures turned out pretty decent, even though the person behind the camera—A.K.A. me—was kind of apathetic about the whole thing. It was only upon seeing how the band behaved in front of the camera that I was reminded of the “charisma” factor—I realized that I’d only been wasting my time and energy stressing about the concept, the locations and the props, when all of it could’ve been trouble-free had I just remembered to consider that factor. That was when I made a mental note: Next time, when photographing musicians, try not to be distracted by the complicated that you end up losing sight of the comfortable. Look past the surface, like album titles, and talk to them about what they want. Finally, once they’re in front of your camera, learn to just let go—of preconceptions and premeditations—and just allow them and their personas to transcend the context and the picture.
Actually, it kind of worked to my advantage that the whole straitjacket-and-gurney thing didn’t materialize, because shelving the, um, psychiatric ward connotations only made room for me to beef up the styling aspect and pursue a few previously untapped resources. Classic case of how a lost cause can have a strange way of turning into a golden opportunity! For the guys (instrumentalists Anthony Uy and Fender Figuera) I looked to Urban Outfitters’ early fall 2010 catalog for inspiration, as well as various Barneys CO-OP catalogs (spring/summer 2009 and spring 2011; yes, I have a weird habit of collecting catalogs). For Chai, I allowed her one grungy outfit, and that’s it, because for majority of the pictures I wanted to portray her as an ingénue by having her slip into girly—albeit not necessarily dainty—cocktail threads from up-and-coming young designer Paco Serafica. People tried to sway me from taking this route, pointing out that Chai was a no-fuss, gamine kind of girl. Trust me, I wanted to respect that, but I felt it was my duty to highlight her being the only female in an otherwise all-male collective! Plus, although she technically wasn’t new to the scene, having been around doing vocals for another band called Mary Peril (formerly known as Balde ni Allan), this album with Womb was to represent her first major breakthrough, and so what better way to celebrate that than by giving her a debutante-like image, right? Also, they could’ve fooled me about the gamine part—anyone who samples/references the Madame de Pompadour in their songwriting (in “Aftertaste” she croons in her velveteen voice, “At sunrise as you asked to be excused:/ Après nous, le Déluge”) is more vixen than gamine in my book.
I feel like I should take the time out to talk about the night shots wherein I had them stand against a fiercely burning flame, because those are the ones that have been getting a lot of positive feedback ever since I put out the sneak peek some eight weeks ago. I can tell you now that that set was inspired by the music video of Hole’s “Malibu” from 1998 (directed by Paul Hunter), in which they set fire to a lot of stuff, including precious palm trees. I was also taking a cue from their own song “30th and 1st,” in which Chai sings, “Moments rain like ember/ What this love is made of.” Although the resulting photos look straightforward, that set was actually the trickiest of all. You see, the original plan was to have them stand in front of three strips of white cloth doused in lighter fluid, suspended from a 10-foot-high clothesline. As luck would have it, that plan turned out to be, again, in Facebook parlace, an “epic fail’—I tossed a lighter at the thing, and immediately a fire was ablaze, but only to fizzle out two or three seconds later, before I could make my way back to the tripod where my camera sat waiting! Didn’t see that coming! We were all taken aback. Thankfully, 22 Tango’s April Ordesta was quick to suggest, “Why don’t we just build a campfire?” It started to rain hard, too, in the middle of it all, but we were already on a roll, and there was no stopping us now. Everyone on set started singing the chorus of Adele’s “Set Fire to the Rain”—although in my head I was signing a different tune: “Fire in the Pouring Rain” by the Blackouts (2004)—and that’s how we got the job done. Fun times, I know!
On the subject of fires that fizzle out and the resilience that makes us bounce back in the game, I was just reading my prized copy of Annie Leibovitz’s At Work (a present from a friend in D.C.—thanks, Irene!) last week, and I stumbled upon her account of the work they put into the photo on the cover of the July 27, 1978, issue of Rolling Stone—Patti Smith standing in front of barrels of flame. Annie told the story of how the initial plan had been to photograph the punk star “in front of a huge wall of flame,” and so they’d “strung up a net soaked in kerosene” behind her, and then set fire to it—alas, that flame had only “lasted for about five seconds.” Eventually they’d decided to set fire to the barrels of kerosene themselves, and that was how they’d gotten their picture. Wasn’t that the exact same thing that happened to us? I couldn’t help but get goosebumps at the parallelism of it all. A year ago when I’d done work for Cattski’s album, Patti Smith had been the central inspiration, and that had all been deliberate. This time around, for this shoot right here, I hadn’t even considered Ms. Smith, but still she found a way to sneak through the back door. God bless the godmother of punk, and may her fire never cease to burn!
Womb is dropping their debut single “Good” today (December 8 Manila time). If you’re in town, and you want to show some love, it’s at Harold’s Hotel down Gorordo and Rosal, and the show starts at 930 PM. I know some of you have kind of lost faith in Cebu music, but trust me when I say this band has got what it takes to make us all believers again! As for me, I’m not styling them tonight, but I will be during the official album launch early next year—and that’s another thing to look forward to!
Charisse “Chai” Fonacier, Anthony Uy and Fender Figuera, collectively known as Womb | Photographed and styled by Angelo Kangleon in Cebu City, Cebu, on September 30, 2012 | Makeup by Justine Gloria | Hair by Sherwin Amodia | Lighting director: Marlowe Guinto | Sittings assistant: April Ordesta | On Chai: Black semi-sheer stripe chiffon corset minidress, Paco Serafica; scarlet leatherette-and-lace minidress with recycled plastic cup skirt in overlapping scale-like pattern, Paco Serafica; black mesh skirt, stylist’s own | On Anthony: Flannel shirt, Heritage 1981, Forever 21; black biker jacket, Zara Man; eggshell silk skinny tie, Springfield UP by Springfield; 8-eyelet 1460 Dr. Martens boots in cherry red, his own | On Fender: Black-and-white gingham dress shirt, Divided by H&M; black sleeveless tuxedo jacket, Protacio; black-and-white striped cotton/silk blend skinny tie, Urban Outfitters; “Misfits” acid wash denim vest, stylist’s own; grey micro fleece hoodie, Uniqlo Undercover by Jun Takahashi; black workboots, Topman; black faux plug earrings, Santee Alley (downtown L.A.)
You Gave Me the Best Mixtape I Have: Vince and Jessa
It’s always interesting, if not thrilling, to see how a theme for a shoot evolves. In my creative process, that’s, like, the icing on the cake. Not a constant, by the way, because there are some clients who come to me already with a fixed plan, something they’ve been mentally picturing and working on single-handedly for weeks or months or years, in which case I have to sidestep the whole icing on the cake thing and make a beeline right into the business of building their wardrobe and/or sourcing for props. Which is not a completely unfortunate thing, really—I mean, I wouldn’t say these kinds of situations are “stifling” or anything like that. As a matter of fact, they actually are ideal, especially when you’re pressed for time; and as long as you and your clients see eye to eye on this fixed plan of theirs, you’ll be fine. Still, nothing else comes close to the kind of excitement that rushes over me when a client comes to me with absolutely nothing, or with just a hint of something, a vague idea that they cannot wait to see me leaven, a creative void that they need me to fill. Not to say that I delight in others’ helplessness, but it feels good when people look to your skills as the missing piece of the puzzle. Like what I said in my profile for the Shutterfairy Photography blogsite (I’m about to graduate from apprentice to in-house stylist/associate photographer, by the way), starting out as a writer/editor has made storytelling a huge part of everything else I would end up pursuing. Helping my clients develop concepts for their photo sessions exercises my storytelling muscles.
When Jessa Yap and Vince dela Calzada came to me for help with their engagement photos, they had a whole bunch of ideas that had been swimming in their heads. And they were all great ideas—except they were very disparate ideas, and, to the untrained eye, if put together would look remarkably disjointed. In their mood board: Photos by Toronto-based whiz Matt Barnes of male models styled in old-school trailer park/trucker fashions (with a touch of daddy mac) and doing some dirt biking at the Gopher Dunes (Vince’s pick, because he liked, well, dirt bikes); another set of photos by the same photographer featuring a wild bunch of grownup club kids wearing neon, Pop Art-inspired swimwear and doing some pretty shady, amoral stuff aboard a yacht (Jessa’s pick, because she liked “multiple bursts of acid colors and punchy brights”); and then there were a cluster of other images sourced from various corners of the Interwebs, all with rocker boy and rocker girl themes (including one of local actress-turned-singer Anne Curtis wearing oversize flannels over a midriff-baring top and denim hotpants, and cradling an electric guitar over her shoulders, Atlas-style, presumably part of the promotional material used in her No Other Concert tour); even a couple of stills from the trailer of the 2011 remake of the 1984 musical-drama film Footloose. Looking at this collage of theirs drove me a little batty at first, but it was no one else’s job but mine to take all these various elements and whip them into something that made sense.
Of course, it didn’t take long for me to arrive at a concept that embraced everything in their board and that most effectively communicated their unique love story. It got them all giddy with excitement when I pronounced we were going to have to do a “’70s, ‘80s, ‘90s” theme! The ‘70s set was going to feature the motorcycle, but instead of a dirt bike I wanted something more heavyweight, something that resembled the cruisers or choppers from the late ‘60s/early ‘70s—I was particularly inspired by the road/biker movies from that era, especially Easy Riders starring Peter Fonda from 1969, The Rebel Rousers starring Cameron Mitchell and Jack Nicholson from 1970, even Mad Max starring Mel Gibson from 1979; all this and more I’d revisited and become obsessed with after seeing the Quentin Tarantino-executive-produced Hell Ride from 2008. Jessa got her “bursts of acid colors and punchy brights” via the ‘80s set, in which I made them wear neon workout outfits—I looked to my mom’s Jane Fonda aerobics videos from that era for inspiration, and that’s how I came up with ideas for the styling (leotards, tights and leg warmers for her), and instead of using a dance studio’s mirrored walls as a backdrop I opted for a graffiti wall. Finally, the ‘90s set was going to combine the rock/grunge elements that they wanted to incorporate (including Anne Curtis’s neo-grunge look from that one photo), as well as the auto repair shop backdrop/grease monkey feel from the Footloose remake.
But while I will take credit for developing the concept and providing some direction, I am not about to take credit for sourcing all these impossible props—that credit goes to Jessa, who spent four whole weeks (give or take a couple of days) gathering all the items. Sure, it was me who came up with a list, but it was her who went around town (and even placed calls to friends who were from out of town) to obtain and gather 90% of what was listed down, improvising where necessary, and even adding items that she figured I’d forgotten to write down (in no time our list grew from 3 pages to five)! Swear to God, she was so resourceful, so ingenious, and so obsessive-compulsive, it made me think, Hey, this girl could give me a run for my money! At one point she became aware of her obsessive-compulsive-ness that she had to apologize, “I bet you’re getting [annoyed] with the million follow-up [e-mails]! I’m sorry!” But there was no need for her to be sorry! In fact, I should be the one apologizing—you know, for dumping all that work on her!
Of course, while Jessa was a champ, Vince was quite the trouper, too. I don’t think I’ve ever enjoyed working with a groom-to-be as much as I did working with Vince. I remember telling Jessa midway through the shoot, “You’re a very lucky girl! Some grooms-to-be, it takes us a couple of days to convince them to put on a certain outfit! Yes, he never complained—even when I threw a pair of jonquil short shorts from Protacio his way (for the ‘80s set)! But what really impressed me was when we were putting together his outfit for the ‘70s/biker set—he was so involved. I had a very crazy, almost outlandish look in mind, inspired by one of the looks from the Axl Rose-inspired Takahiro Miyashita for Number (N)ine spring/summer 2006 collection: black skinny trousers tucked into big black boots, acid wash denim vest over a black long-sleeved shirt, and a bandana estilo, well, Axl Rose. The denim vest and black books I took care of, because aren’t those kinds of things my specialty (I made him wear my acid wash denim jacket with the sleeves cut off and with the insignia of the ‘70s horror punk band Misfits handpainted on the back—a prized possession, because I wore it to some of the most memorable rock shows I’ve been to in my life, including an Alice in Chains concert in Hollywood some three years ago, and because it never fails to get compliments whenever I’m in some grownup cool kid territory like, say, Brooklyn)? Everything else he looked for himself, including this very specific black long-sleeved henley shirt, the red bandana, and the biker belt, the latter he snatched from his dad’s closet, saying, “My dad was big on the ‘Hagibis look’ back in the day” (Hagibis is a local all-male sing-and-dance band who were popular back in the ‘70s for their campy songs and biker-inspired outfits). You gotta love him, right? Well, and you gotta love his dad, too!
It’s probably too early to tell, but I am just about ready to declare this one shoot right here my favorite for 2012. I mean, three totally different themes rolled into one? What a way to flex my creative muscles, right? These kinds of things, although a bit daunting, can be quite fun. Like putting together a mixtape for someone you are absolutely smitten with!
Speaking of mixtapes, here are the songs that Jessa and Vince picked, if they were to come up with mixtapes for each other:
Jessa’s mixtape for Vince:
- “Baby, I Love Your Way” by Peter Frampton (1975)
- “How Deep Is Your Love” by the Bee Gees (1977)
- “We Are Man and Wife” by Michelle Featherstone
- “Dancing in the Moonlight” by King Harvest (1973)
- “Can’t Smile Without You” by Barry Manilow (1978)
- “Got to Get You into My Life” by Earth, Wind & Fire (1978)
- “Just My Imagination (Running Away with Me)” by The Temptations (1971)
- “Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go” by Wham! (1984)
- “Walking on Sunshine” by Katrina and the Waves (1985)
- “Time After Time” by Cyndi Lauper (1984)
- “I Love You Always Forever” by Donna Lewis (1996)
- “Kiss Me” by Sixpence None the Richer (1997)
- “As I Lay Me Down” is by Sophie B. Hawkins (1995)
- “Wonderwall” by Oasis (1995)
- “I Wouldn’t Be Here If I Didn’t Love You” by Belinda Carlisle (1996)
- “More Than Words” by Extreme (1990)
- “Love You Down” by INOJ (1997)
- “Get Here” by Oleta Adams (1990)
Vince’s mixtape for Jessa:
- “(Everything I Do) I Do It for You” by Bryan Adams (1991)
- “Wonderful Tonight” by Eric Clapton (1977)
- “(They Long to Be) Close to You” by The Carpenters (1970)
- “Isn’t She Lovely?” by Stevie Wonder (1976)
- “Everything I Own” by Bread (1972)
- “More Today Than Yesterday” by Spiral Staircase (1969)
- “This Will Be (An Everlasting Love)” by Natalie Cole (1975)
- “Have I Told You Lately” by Rod Stewart (1993)
- “Heaven Must Be Missing an Angel” by Tavares (1976)
- “I Should Be So Lucky” by Kylie Minogue (1987)
- “Best of My Love” by The Emotions (1977)
- “You Get What You Give” by the New Radicals (1998)
- “Follow You Down” by the Gin Blossoms (1996)
- “Someday We’ll Know” by the New Radicals (1999)
- “Best I Ever Had (Grey Sky Morning)” by Vertical Horizon (2001)
Vince dela Calzada and Jessa Yap | Photographed and styled by Angelo Kangleon for Shutterfairy in Cebu City on February 19, 2012 | Main photographer: Malou Pages-Solomon for Shutterfairy | Hair and makeup by Ramil Solis | Special thanks to: Nacho Pangilinan | Jonquil cotton short shorts, Protacio | Flannel shirt, 21 Men | Black Dublin Sounds Studios tee, Urban Outfitters | Black workboots, Topman | Black long-sleeved henley, Penshoppe | “Misfits” acid wash denim vest, stylist’s own
In our mood board (see below) Top row, L-R: Photos from a dirt bike-themed shoot by Matt Barnes; looks from Number (N)ine’s Axl Rose-inspired spring/summer 2006 collection, photographed by Marcio Madeira for Vogue.com. Middle row, L-R: VHS box cover of an old school Jane Fonda workout video (image from Amazon.com); photo by Mariano Vivanco from a sportswear editorial (styled by Nicola Formichetti) in the November 2008 issue of Dazed & Confused; promotional poster of Anne Curtis’s No Other Concert tour. Bottom row: Photo from a Bret Easton Ellis-inspired shoot by Matt Barnes; still from the 2011 remake of 1984′s Footloose, starring Kenny Wormald and Julianne Hough; still from the Quentin Tarantino-executive-produced Hell Ride.
What a Day for a Daydream: Jerbie and Michelle
“I don’t think I’ve ever seen this much hyperflorals in one closet!” That’s what I exclaimed as I was rummaging through Michelle Gutierrez’s closet during my house call to style her and her fiancé Jerbie Domingo for their engagement photos. “Or this much Forever 21!” When I’d said during our initial meetings that I’d wanted hyperflorals, you see, she’d offered, “You might want to take a look at my closet; I think I might have a little.” Well, I don’t know what her definition of little is, but one whole closet of hyperflorals is not a little to me! And about 90% of them from Forever 21! (She would later admit that she’s a sucker for anything Forever 21—at the time of my house call the store hadn’t even set up shop in Cebu yet, and so most of her items she’d gotten during “shopping trips” to Manila and elsewhere.)
I love it when my clients allow me to do house calls—not a lot of them do, you see, and that’s a shame—because it makes my job easier by giving me a strong starting point. People tend to say things like, “But I don’t have a lot of stuff in my closet!” or “I don’t own anything you’re gonna be remotely interested in!” But I always say, “Who knows?” You may be tired of looking at your own clothes, but with a fresh pair of eyes by your side there’s a huge chance that you’re gonna unearth hidden gems—after all, I would say 90% of a stylist’s job is to make you look at something in a way you’ve never looked at it before. Some of the best styling jobs I’ve done (like for Rey Dauz and Sheryl Guzman’s “vintage travel”-themed engagement session, for example) turned out the way they did because my clients opened up their homes—and their closet doors—to me, and so they became collaborative efforts, you know? It’s like the “Bend and Snap” from Legally Blonde: “It works every time.” You just have to trust me on this one. (Don’t worry, you won’t be obligated to cook for me. LOL.)
Anyways, backpedaling to the story: It was a “springtime picnic” kind of feel that we wanted Michelle and Jerbie’s engagement photos to evoke. The idea for the theme came to us when my mentor Malou Pages-Solomon (of Shutterfairy Photography, where I am currently apprenticing) took me for a drizzy Sunday afternoon stroll up the Banawa Hills’ Tanchan-owned Celestial Gardens, and I fell absolutely in love with the place. I always talk about how I am not a big fan of vegetation in this part of the world, but this place right here was a different story altogether—it was like we weren’t in Cebu! There were parts where the foliage were manicured, and parts where they had this unstudied, unkempt appeal, and when you put them together it’s just bewitching. (There’s even a sweet little spot in there that overlooks Cebu City, it reminds me of the Getty’s Lower Terrace Sculpture Garden that overlooks Los Angeles! Just breathtaking!) What’s more, it was discreet in architecture and artifice—it was, like, 85% nature. And even in the rain and the fog it was beautiful—how much more so when the sun was shining? I wasted no time in telling Malou that I wanted to have a shoot in that very place, something with a picnic theme, and that was when she suggested, “Why don’t we do that for Michelle and Jerbie’s session next week?” Just like that, we got to work. Luckily for me, the couple welcomed the idea. There were minor hitches in trying to book the venue at first, especially after two of the custodians said that photoshoots were “not allowed” in the area, but we were able to pull some strings, and so we made it happen.
During our initial discussions around wardrobe, Michelle had expressed interest in flowy, diaphanous dresses in white or off-white, kind of like the wedding dress that Amanda Seyfried’s character wore in the Mamma Mia! film, but Malou was quick to discourage us from pursuing this look, pronouncing that using white dresses in engagement photos was a tired, old rule that she wanted to steer clear of. The idea for bright hyperflorals (and patterns) came to me when I thought about the place we were going to be shooting at and what it lacked, and it occurred to me the Celestial Gardens were all green and had very little flowering plants. Why not let Michelle be the flower to lend a burst of color to the place? I thought. People often ask me what hyperfloral is, and how that’s different from the regular floral, and I wish I could do a better job at explaining things like this (yes, contrary to popular belief, I am not about to write a doctorate paper on styling), but all I’ve really got to say is it’s kind of like chintz—varying floral patterns rather than just one, and in a melee rather than in an orderly sequence. Think Peter Copping for Nina Ricci Spring 2012 Ready-to-Wear—or, better yet, think the works of textile designer and artist Zina de Plagny, who was the central inspiration for that collection.
Of course, I didn’t want it to be all-floral, so I decided to throw something with an ethic print into the mix—more specifically, a cobalt blue/orange-red Navajo-print dress. I don’t know, but at the time I kind of had a feeling ethnic prints were going to be huge in the coming seasons (flash forward to today, and, voila, we see a lot of Aztec prints in, say, Topshop’s new collection), and plus I’d always been fascinated with them (I have Navajo-print bedroom curtains, and a couple of tank tops in Ikat-inspired prints). A friend of mine who observed as I was I was putting together these outfits for Michelle commented that she was “relieved” that I was able to restrain myself from injecting a little grunge into the picture—“For once you’re doing something really girly!” she exclaimed—but that only goes to show she wasn’t paying close attention, because if you take a closer look you will see that the dresses I picked were all in babydoll silhouettes, that I managed to throw some leather jackets into the mix, and that for one of the sets I had Michelle ditch the ballet flats in favor of 1460 8-eye Doc Martens! Trust me to always have a little bit of grunge sneak up on you, even if the situation doesn’t call for it!
It was my idea to put a TV set and a couch in the middle of the frangipani garden (I love frangipani, especially when they’re in clusters—their knotty, spindly branches have a way of slicing sunlight into gorgeous little rays that add a dramatic dimension to your frame). Just because the theme was picnic didn’t mean they had to be sprawled on the ground the whole time, you know? Besides, an outdoor couch potato set was in order, especially since I wanted some of these photos to reflect Jerbie’s personality—for what was Jerbie without his TV (he’s a self-confessed TV and film buff; he works for SM Cinemas)? I would’ve wanted a vintage TV set, though—like something from the ’50s jet age—and a bigger couch, but, well, sometimes you gotta work with what you have.
As gorgeous as the photos turned out, I’m afraid they kind of do not do justice to the day they were taken. It was such a charming day, despite the fact that it was sweltering (I had to pile sunblock on three times!) and that we were up to the neck in enormous props. The atmosphere was serene; the grass so soft we couldn’t resist lying on it like cats; and there were birds that wouldn’t stop chirping! And how about that creamy sunset? The day had a certain feeling to it; it was the kind of day fashioned for a romance novel. Add to that Michelle and Jerbie’s playful, childlike chemistry, and you have the makings of a photo session that you don’t want to ever end (our timetable had called for us to wrap by 4PM, but we kept shooting well until 6PM, anyway)! It was as if we were in a daydream! I love it when all the elements of a shoot come together to create one big perfect moment. It makes me sigh dreamily and think to myself, There’s work, and then there’s this.
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I am currently in Los Angeles, CA, on vacation, so please forgive me if I am unable to update this blog over the next couple of weeks. To those who’ve been sending me messages asking me to style their sessions, please check with Malou Pages (mail@shutterfairy.net) for available dates (I will be back in Cebu soon).
Jerbie Domingo and Michelle Gutierrez | Photographed and styled by Angelo Kangleon for Shutterfairy in Cebu City on December 11, 2011 | Main photographers: Malou Pages-Solomon for Shutterfairy, Paul Armand Calo for Calography (click here to view Malou’s set) | Hair and makeup by Owen Taboada | White hyperfloral babydoll dress, cobalt blue/orange-red Navajo-print dress, and Palatinate blue hyperfloral baby doll dress, all from Forever 21 | Blue cardigan, Primark/Atmosphere UK | Chamoisee biker jacket and desert sand bomber jacket, all from Forever 21 | Red cardigan, Charles 1/2, Urban Outfitters | International orange lightweight summer shirt, American Apparel | Multi-colored striped zip-front sweater, Esprit
The Devil’s in Your Kiss: Michael and Maria
In February I dreamed of grunge. Of unbuttoned plaid flannels flapping in the wind like a migratory bird about to embark on one of its seasonal journeys. Of ratty old jeans more torn than Ednaswap or Natalie Imbruglia could ever be. Of greasy, unkempt tendrils creeping out from under wool beanies. Of beat-up 14-hole Doc Martens stomping on dirty pavement. Of teeth-clenching throughout an entire opus. Of smelling “like teen spirit.”
I wasn’t stoned to the bajesus or anything; I was merely inspired. It all started when I was researching the German (or so I think he is) photographer Horst Diekgerdes after falling in love with the flare effects in his advertising work for Chloe from 2002 (I’d been flipping through old magazines!), and I stumbled upon this editorial that he did for Teen Vogue with stylist Havana Laffitte called “Finding Nirvana” featuring modern rethinks (Marc by Marc Jacobs, Missoni, A.P.C., Isabel Marant, etc.) of the grunge classics. The fashion, mood and mise en scène were so dead-on they brought me back to my own pimply adolescence when I would spend weeks on end experimenting on my jeans—including my one and only pair of 501s—to achieve the perfect ripped effect, raid my dad’s closet for his old Pendletons, and stay up until the wee hours of the morning just staring at this one photo of an all-grunged-up Kristen McMenamy by Steven Meisel, which I’d torn off of the December 1992 Vogue (from a spread called “Grunge & Glory”). Suddenly I found myself sorting through my iTunes looking for post-Louder Than Love Soundgarden and pre-Celebrity Skin Hole. And then glued to YouTube watching clips of Nirvana’s and Alice in Chains’s performances on MTV Unplugged. And then digging through stacks of my old Spins for anecdotes on bad behavior in the ‘90s music scene—did you know, for example, that Courtney Love used to flash her breasts to her audience during encores? Speaking of, um, mammaries, who could forget Bridget Fonda’s classic line from Cameron Crowe’s Singles from 1992: “Are my breasts too small for you?” I had planned on watching The Social Network on DVD, but now I was shelving it in favor of the ‘90s classics like, well, the aforementioned Singles, Ben Stiller’s directorial debut Reality Bites from 1994, and, of course, Antonia Bird’s Mad Love from 1995. Just like that, I got that old time feeling. The cutesy floral babydolls that Fonda’s Janet Livermore wore with leather biker jackets and trilbies. Ethan Hawke’s Troy Dyer and his unwashed mane and everlasting gaze. Drew Barrymore’s Casey Roberts and her oversize plaid flannels and messy pixie. When I got to the part when Casey stood at the back of Matt’s (Chris O’Donnell’s character) pickup truck as they drove away from all the troubles in their lives, her unbuttoned flannels, well, flapping in the wind like a migratory bird about to embark on one of its seasonal journeys, with Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers’ “Here Comes My Girl” playing in the background (heartland rock from the early ‘80s, really, and not grunge, but no other song could’ve been more fitting), I thought of how awesome it would be to have a shoot inspired by this whole grunge feel.
As luck would have it, less than 24 hours later, Maria Velasquez would announce her engagement to Michael Franco via a Facebook photo album, comic strip-style (you should’ve seen it, it was something). I was jumping up and down my seat thinking, wow, the timing couldn’t have been more perfect! I’d known Maria since forever, from when she’d been my associate lifestyle editor at Eastern Visayas Mail some 8 years back, and I’d always admired they way she carried herself—not afraid to speak her mind, opinionated yet canny, brash yet good-humored, like a one-girl revolution. Her headstrong, devil-may-care, semi-rebel nature and no-fuss, somewhat tomboyish style harbored just the sense of cool that I wanted to tap into for the grunge theme I envisioned. We wasted no time exchanging e-mails. Quite the coup in my part: It didn’t take a whole lot of effort to convince her to go for the theme. I only had to leverage the blog post that she herself had put up almost a year back, in which she’d paid homage to her 10-year-old 1460 8-eye Doc Martens. Swear to God, my amazing recall of all manner of detail is my best weapon. OK, I’m lying: I also had to sweet-talk her by pointing out that her fiancé was sort of a dead ringer for Chris O’Donnell. But that was it. In less than a half-hour I got her to say yes. Which, if you come to think of it, made that day the day she said yes twice.
Over the next couple of days a few of adjustments had to be made, especially since I found out that Michael wasn’t a grunge guy. I mean, he liked grunge and all, but that wasn’t the only thing he was into. An avid guitarist, he was also into hard rock, heavy metal, alternative, punk—you name it. And so instead of setting a theme that was purely grunge, we had to go for something a little broader—Maria and I both decided to make it ‘90s. At first the thought of giving the initial mood board an overhaul seemed disconcerting, but over time I came to an understanding that it was for the best, especially when, as I was visualizing the styling in my head, I realized that it would be just plain wrong to subject Michael to heavy grunge gear à la Matt Dillon’s Cliff Poncier from Singles—the whole thing would come out too contrived and too costumey. That’s the thing about styling for real people: You have a vision, yes, and people are going to respect that, but at the same time you have to take into consideration what your subjects are like in real life, and so you might have to exercise some restraint, tone it down a bit, because what you really need to do is augment their abstract qualities, not try to disguise them. And so, after careful deliberation, this was what the final mood board looked like: stills from the 1993 music video of Aerosmith’s “Cryin’,” featuring Alicia Silverstone and Stephen Dorff; a photo of a young Kate Moss wearing a feather headdress by the British fashion and documentary photographer Corinne Day for the July 1990 issue of The Face (also known as “The 3rd Summer of Love” issue, and the editorial in question, styled by Melanie Ward, is what many fashion journalists consider to be the launching pad that propelled Ms. Moss into superstardom); the soundtracks to 1999’s 10 Things I Hate About You and 1995’s Empire Records; that one still from Mad Love (Barrymore standing at the back of O’Donnell’s pickup truck as he drove); and the album cover of the Smashing Pumpkins’ Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness from 1995 for the palette (take note that by palette here I mean the color swatches to be used in the final layout, and not necessarily in the styling, because I like to think of the finished product ahead of time—in this case, it was coral red, eggplant, light olive, Navajo white variation # 9, and dark chestnut that I was able to extract from the Mellon Collie album cover). There was this one photo of Mischa Barton by Bruce Weber (styled by, well, Havana Laffitte, from the September 2006 issue of Teen Vogue), in which she was wearing an oversize flannel shirt and a floral-print thermal tee over a net-overlaid taffeta gown from Peter Som’s Fall 2006 Ready-to-Wear collection, that did not make it to the board because of, well, the gown element, but I kept it in my head, just in case. Also in the backlog: the motorcycle scenes from the video of Aerosmith’s “Amazing” from 1993.
Long-distance styling can be a massive pain in the backside because it takes out of the equation some of the more important steps—like doing house calls to inspect the client’s closet for pieces they might already have that can be useful, taking their measurements, overseeing the actual fittings, etc. —but Maria was so hands-on she made it a lot easier for me. I e-mailed her a 3-page list of clothing items and accessories, and she would send the file back to me all marked up with her comments (“Yes, I have this, but in a darker shade of blue” or “No, I do not have anything that looks like this, but please do look for one for me”). It helped that she had bristling Internet savvy, having been a blogger since time immemorial (i.e., before it had become a fad), ‘cause when there was an item or two she couldn’t picture she’d do some digging up in cyberspace to see what they looked like, and more often that not she’d come up with better images/samples than what I’d had in mind! We followed this very same modus operandi when it was time to finalize the props and the locations. Somehow I was able to find (and work with) someone who was more obsessive-compulsive than I was. It took us a good five or so days doing all this, but they were time well spent.
Next on the agenda was picking a date for the shoot. We had initially agreed on February 13, Sunday, but somehow that didn’t feel right—for one, I seemed to know it was, um, impolite to wear them out in the hours leading to their first Valentine’s eve as an engaged couple! And so we had to push it back to the following Sunday, which turned out to be the right move: February 20 was Kurt Cobain’s birthday, the 17th after his passing (he would’ve turned 44). You know the stars are all aligned and you’re in for something hella good when even your shooting date is in keeping with the theme!
On the day of the shoot I woke up at 5 AM. I’d arrived in Ormoc 1 PM of the previous day, and went straight to bed after 2 hours of oculars—I’d figured more than 12 hours of sleep should be enough to prep me for a 12-hour shoot (I do not have an assistant, so if it’s an on-location assignment that entails 4 or more sets I usually plot a 7-to-7 in my datebook). Michael and Maria were ready by 7:30 AM, complete with an entourage (3 people!) to help out with the props and the heavy equipment! There were a few setbacks, like the pickup truck not turning up (we’d asked to borrow my cousin Francis’s vintage-looking bad boy that looked like a ‘78–‘79 Ford F100 Custom XLT, but he was marooned in Manila)—good thing Maria had a Plan B, and she had her cousin’s jeep on standby (things like this I appreciate because I’m not very good with backup plans).
I was happy with the clothes, too. The five or so days we’d spent exchanging e-mails to plot their outfits turned out to be the best investment. I loved that Maria paid close attention to detail. When I’d told her to bring a pair of denim shorts, for example, she could’ve brought one that was close-fitting, but she’d known we were doing ‘90s so she’d made a conscious effort to bring one that was somewhat baggy. Some items weren’t perfect, but a little nip and tuck here and there did the trick—the floral minidress that we’d borrowed for my mom, for instance, wasn’t exactly babydoll and didn’t exactly have that ‘90s silhouette, but a few crude alterations to the hemline brought us closer to the vicinity of the Donna Martin look. That wasn’t the only alteration that had to be made on the fly—when I told her to cut the sleeves off her precious denim jacket to make it look more in sync with Axl Rose-inspired red bandana, she obliged. I hope I’m not blowing my horn too much if I say I think this was my best styling job ever. My only regret was forgetting to ask Michael to slip out of his surfer sandals and borrow my Bed Stu work boots for a while, but, oh, well, the whole thing didn’t turn out dastardly so I guess we’re fine.
Sheila On did a really great job with hair and makeup. This was my first time working with her, but she just blew me away with her awesomeness. We didn’t have to explain to her what we’d wanted—Maria only had to show her a photo of Alicia Silverstone circa the Areosmith years, and they got to work. Of course, it’s a look Sheila is all too familiar with: We were classmates in high school, so it’s safe to say we grew up with the same inspirations (I remember asking her almost everyday to sing Shanice’s “Saving Forever for You” from the Beverly Hills, 90210 soundtrack to me—another thing you should know about her is she got mad pipes!). She couldn’t be with us the whole time, though, since she’d just opened her studio and had clients literally banging on her door, but that was fine because her finished product required minimal to no retouching, even when Maria had to sweat like hell because of all the crazy stunts I was making her do. The only retouching that had to be done were those between sets, and thank God Sheila had chosen to set up camp smack in the middle of the city, only a good 10 minutes away from wherever we were shooting.
I must say, though, that my favorite part of this whole thing was how game my subjects were. This was my first solo project, and naturally I’d had apprehensions—like, “Am I sure about this? Can I do this?”—but Michael and Maria were so upbeat and flexible and playful and just plain wonderful to work with that all my worries had to hit the road. They also liked to overcompensate. I’d asked for an electric guitar, and Michael brought two. I’d asked for a small set of speakers and amps, and he brought everything he owned plus a couple more he’d borrowed from friends. I’d asked for an empty bottle of Jägermeister, they brought all sorts of liquor bottles in all shapes and sizes! (They even brought a dozen sandwiches for snacks, and said I was supposed to finish all of it!) Did I mention they were extra resourceful? When I decided the last minute that I wanted to do an “Amazing”-inspired motorbike set, they found a bike to borrow at the snap of their fingers. It helped that Michael was into photography, too—in between frames he would dispense quick suggestions and helpful tips. (I guess it’s worth mentioning now that one of his cameras he’d sold to contribute to the engagement ring fund—isn’t that sweet?) And Maria, so used to being a muse, was a natural in front of the camera—she had this preternatural way of finding the right facial expressions, and a sinuous grace that made her poses look like actual movements. I also saw how supportive they were of each other—I’d ask Maria to do something really tricky, and Michael would cheer, “You can do it!” Yes, I have the tendency to push my subjects around a bit. But it was the sets wherein I had absolutely nothing to do with the sittings—i.e., the stolens and the candids—that I enjoyed shooting the most. These two, when they think nobody’s watching—or taking a picture, for that matter—are quite the pair. Pure, unadulterated chemistry. I swear there were times I forgot they were yet to be married, ‘cause they looked like they’d been married from the moment they’d first met.
I couldn’t make it to their wedding because I was booked for another shoot, but I heard it was quite the spectacle. No, the theme wasn’t grunge, but one that was equally fierce: Mafia. I was just looking at the photos from their wedding reception, and it looked pretty wild, alright—think The Sopranos meets The Wedding Crashers. It’s refreshing that there are people who get to come up with things like this, because it makes the whole thing all the more memorable. Were they trying to cause a stir? Well, no. They simply wanted to prove to the world that rock ‘n’ roll dreams do come true.
Michael Vincent Franco and Maria Cecilia Velásquez | Photographed and styled by Angelo Kangleon in Ormoc City on February 20, 2011 | Hair and makeup by Sheila On (to book Sheila, click here)
In my mood board (see below, clockwise from top left): Stills of Alicia Silverstone and Stephen Dorff from the music video for Aerosmith’s “Cryin’,” 1993; the soundtracks to 1995’s Empire Records and 1999’s 10 Things I Hate About You; a photograph of Kate Moss by Corinne Day (styled by Melanie Ward) for The Face’s “The 3rd Summer of Love” issue, July 1990; still of Drew Barrymore and Chris O’Donnell from Antonia Bird’s Mad Love, 1995; palette inspired by the drabber colors of the album cover of The Smashing Pumpkin’s Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness, 1995, composed of (L-R) coral red, eggplant, light olive, Navajo white variation # 9, and dark chestnut (take note that, because I added some grain to them, the swatches here might be different—darker, if you will—from the samples in your matching system).
