At the end of every Fashion Week, Heart Evangelista has a tradition. She, with her fans present, hands out coffee and snacks, sometimes Filipino desserts, to the legions of street style photographers camped out outside each fashion show to take photos of the stars.

It’s a tradition that was born through the suggestion of her husband, Senator Chiz Escudero. Heart had shared with him three years ago that, after witnessing the photographers running to take shots under the sun, rain, and cold, she wanted to do something nice for them. 

“A lot of them are my friends. When I’m waiting in line, some keep me company because they know I’m shy. And I grew up around cameramen and photographers. They’re actually the unsung heroes of Fashion Week because they’re the ones who put your photos in magazines. And if you’re in the magazines, then your media impact value is high,” she shares.

And so the tradition—admittedly a very Filipino thing—was born. 

Heart, before landing on the global stage as a fashion and beauty influencer, as any Filipino knows, was a veteran of the Philippine entertainment industry. She started in local showbiz at the age of 13, acting in teleseryes, being a VJ on music channel Myx, and establishing herself as a household name. But Heart reveals that in all that time, she was never afforded the liberty of being her true self. Her true self was, she was told, too kikay, too high-end, too unrelatable, and she was asked to bury it to better fit into the tried-and-tested mold of what appealed to the masses. Even in school, she was bullied for what she was, and ate lunch alone in the bathroom. Later on, in the mid-2010s, after years in the business, Heart knew that her time in the industry had run its course. “I just kind of knew that showbiz was finished,” she says. “I knew I was done and it was time to move on. I didn’t know what to do. I started to paint.” Heart’s painting culminated in exhibits both here and abroad, and in commissioned paintings on pricey Hermes Birkin bags for local and international clients.

It was because of her painting that a friend in France invited her to the show of Schiaparelli in Paris. Heart, a known fashion lover, flew halfway around the globe, thinking it would be a good opportunity to meet people for her painting. She did meet people—the right people, who invited her back again. The invites kept coming, and multiplied, and before she knew it, even without intending to make it a career, she was attending every season.

But the fashion industry is cut-throat, and the limited seats are reserved for only the biggest names and the brightest stars. And even Heart, a full-blown celebrity in the Philippines, was unable to snag seats at first. “This was around 2015, 2016,” she recalls. “Even the companies that were selling the brands here in the Philippines would have a hard time asking for seats for me, or for anyone, to watch.”

A country like the Philippines is barely on the map for luxury brands. “We’re not known to be a purchasing market,” Heart explains. “Brands would ask, ‘What’s in the Philippines? Why do we need to give this person from there a seat?’” The Philippines just doesn’t pull in the sales figures that would pique luxury brands’ interests, plus consumers here who can afford luxury items usually purchase through a personal shopper based abroad. But this only underscores the incredible feat that Heart has pulled off. Despite the lack of numbers from the Philippines, in her words, “the gates are now open.” Invitations are aplenty, and she has numerous regional and global collaborations and ambassador-ships, including her present and past deals with Ferragamo, Mugler, Vone World, ION Orchard, Lancaster, Sequioa, among others, apart from a cavalcade of local endorsements. On the global stages of beauty and fashion, the name Heart Evangelista is one to be reckoned with.

Nowadays, Heart sashays through the streets of the fashion capitals with an ease that can be attributed to knowing she belongs there. And in a twist of fate, it’s the public that didn’t have the purchasing power in the first place, that helped her get there. “They [the brands] have seen that we have the numbers to create and generate interest, to generate traffic on social media,” Heart points out. “Now, everybody gets to watch.” She even mentions a movement her fans started, an effort to sell out items that she patronizes, posting online #heartmademedoit.

Photographer: Mark Nicdao

It’s a staggering amount of power to behold, over a captive audience in a country casually baptized “the social media capital of the world,” and the world is beginning to see how valuable it is. “There’s definitely been a shift,” Heart agrees. “Thanks to social media, there are no more boundaries.”

With this newfound power, if there’s one thing that Heart would like to redefine about the global perception of the Filipino now, it’s that we are pushovers. “Filipinos are always meek, sweet, kind, but we know how to fight. We know when to put our foot down,” she says with conviction. “I think this is something that people should know. Filipinos are working here, there, everywhere. Because we’re known to be mabait and to give over 100 percent for an employer, I feel like a lot of Filipinos are taken advantage of abroad. But may tapang tayo.”

It sounds like a hard-won realization, coming from someone who also had to learn to stand on her own, as herself, not playing a role or fitting into a mold that was pre-selected for her, and to find power in her own truth. And now, it’s a global stage that Heart is standing on, representing the Phililppines, yes, but also representing the most truthful version of herself. “I still get very nervous, especially with big crowds or an audience,” she shares. “But I’ve been through so much to get to this point, that I have to take a deep breath and just enjoy it. I have to speak for the little girl in me, because she deserves it.”

Photographer: Mark Nicdao. Fashion direction: Daryl Chang. Fashion assistant: Kurt Abonal. Beauty direction: Andrea Ang. Makeup: Memay Francisco. Hair: Mark Ghil Sayo. Fashion styling: Izabel Sim, assisted by Justine Riguer.

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