How Marina Antonio inspired three generations of designers
A granddaughter’s story
On Tuesday, Sept. 10, we will be unveiling Love, Marina, an exhibit in partnership with SM Aura that is a tribute to Marina Reyes Antonio and the generations of fashion designers she inspired in her family.
The earnest preparations for this exhibit, which features the designs of Marina Antonio, her daughter Malu Veloso, granddaughters Vicky and Letlet Veloso, and great granddaughter Hannah Barrera, took almost a year to date.
But for me, the journey to Love, Marina took much longer than that. It took almost 50 years—most of my life, in fact.
I was in my late teens and writing for a fashion magazine called Manila Women’s Wear when I began collecting mementos, or items that had to do with preserving cherished memories for my family. This meant magazine clippings, newspaper articles, photographs, dresses, and the like.
I had unwittingly become the archivist of my Antonio-Veloso-Barrera family.
That’s why, when I felt the time was right to write a book on my Lola Marina, I already had most of what I needed in archives, and a lifetime of growing up with this multi-talented grandmother.
Marina Antonio was a consummate artist whose skills lay in the realm of lifestyle arts—sewing, cooking, gardening, painting. I imbibed all of this as naturally as breathing since I grew up next door to her.
As a child, I made her little hand-rolled roses as a hobby. She stood next to me when I tested my recipes in her kitchen, keeping an eye yet never telling me what to do. My Lolo Pablo choked on quite a few of my kitchen “experiments” but told me they were delicious anyway.
I loved the gardens full of butterflies and dragonflies, and fishponds full of fish. It was but natural to wander through her house and see her pack up a wedding gown, carefully layered in boxes of tissue and gugo bark. The boxes were gracefully lettered “Marina Antonio” by my adopted Tita Annette who had beautiful calligraphy.
In the beginning, I had a list of the families and brides who were the clientele and close friends of my Lola Marina. In order to obtain more, I announced my project with calls on social media for more photos and gowns.
The magic of social media, when harnessed for good, can be utterly astounding—one gown led to another, and another. There was a snowball effect that has not stopped gathering momentum to this day.
One US-based bride, Marissa Hernandez Yu, answered the social media call, even bringing her Marina Antonio wedding gown and a bridesmaid’s home to be used in the exhibit. This led to her bringing up the exhibit to Bettina Lorenzo Benitez, whose mother Alice Paez was an Antonio bride. Her home was built by my lolo Pablo Antonio. The Paez-Lorenzo clan alone has to date contributed no less than four spectacular wedding gowns to Love, Marina.
As people shared not just gowns and photos but also their stories, Marina Antonio began to emerge in ways I’d never seen before. I knew she was a charming host who served delicious meals to family, clients, and friends—the distinction between those categories became very blurred.
I began to see her through the eyes of other people and learn that she made time to join church and charitable organizations. The gowns revealed an artist I’d never seen before either.
The highly technical skills of fabric manipulation or incredible forms of embellishment are seen in all the gowns. Even more astounding to me and my sister Letlet was that no matter how many new gowns came in, no two were alike! Yet they all bore her Marina Antonio stamp and personal touch.
The embellishments told their own story of how she handpainted the gowns, even working over Holy Week if needed.
Stains and damage told their own stories, and not always bad ones. Yes, many gowns were improperly stored which, thankfully, Jeeves of Belgravia managed to restore. They are still cleaning a number of vintage Marina Antonios.
Looking for dress forms revealed the Filipina’s slight physique of old: the tiny waistlines. My goodness, what an effort it has taken and is still taking to find enough dress forms for all the gowns we are exhibiting that date from the ’30s onward.
I discovered more about how to go about the exhibit and the book in journeys abroad, taken purposely for that reason and to get archival material from the US Library of Congress (for Clare Booth Luce). Jim Zobel, the archivist of the Douglas MacArthur Memorial and Jean MacArthur Library in Norfolk, Virginia, provided me with all the photos of Mrs. MacArthur during their stay in Manila. There are a number there that could be attributed to her designer, Marina Antonio.
Discovering a legacy much deeper than I thought, a legacy told in lacework, dreams painted on jusi, roses spun out of memory’s garden, boxes signed by my aunt Annette… it’s taken me on an unexpected and delightful journey to know my lola Marina as others knew her. Working on both the exhibit and the book has been my happiest life project to date and any stress I feel is happy stress. It’s more the feeling of being overwhelmed by the outpouring of love towards my lola as her clients and friends share their precious photos, gowns, and stories with me.
Other family members will have their own memories colored by their own experiences of my lola.
But this is not their story, it’s mine, and my journey of a year or a lifetime makes it a story all my own.
A story of a multifaceted woman, where my tale is just one facet of her life.
It is one facet of mine.
It is, uniquely, her eldest grandchild’s tale.
