I loathe the North with a passion. It comes with living in the southern part of the metro. You see, everything past Makati is completely foreign, and more often than not, feels hostile. But if you’re headed to the extreme ends of the North to visit Kim Jones-Rosales, getting lost (despite a GPS navigation system) and passing through four gates (the village is practically a fortress!), it’s all worth the trip.
We arrive at her massive home, half an hour late, and Kim welcomes us into her modern-minimalist abode, dressed in a light grey pair of trousers and a flouncy, off-shouldered top. “I’m really obsessed with this at the moment,” she says, pointing to the flurry of white fabric in her full-fledged Aussie accent. Devoid of any makeup and with the warmest of smiles, it hardly takes a second for one to conclude that she is one of the prettiest faces you will ever encounter.
You could imagine my difficulty believing that this Australia-bred Filipina-Brit was once upon a time, a banker. “The nine to five? Not my cup of tea,” she intimates. She continues to hop around the house barefoot, like the carefree, pretty thing she is, and finally shows us into the walk-in closet she shares with her husband Jericho—a sacred space that not many have been to before. In fact, you can count us as one of the lucky few from the industry who have stepped foot into the private couple’s home.
She settles on a chair by the sink as we set up our cameras to shoot, and classical music plays faintly from her laptop. I ask the obvious, “What’s on loop on your playlist these days?” Kim bursts into a hearty laughter and responds “Roberto Cacciapaglia!” then proceeds to admit being a fan of classical music. And like the good hostess that she is, she lets us make a mess of her closet, moving furniture and rearranging objects. She obliges us with anecdotes of her husband’s obsession with cars, which he equates to her obsession with shoes, (“Boys and their toys,” I mutter, as we roll our eyes in unison), offers us grilled cheese sandwiches (an offer which Artu, our photographer, could not refuse), and shares her trade secrets: ASOS, Net-A-Porter, Avenue 32, and Moda Operandi are Kim’s four go-to online destinations for shopping. “I spend most of my time shopping online, actually!”
She’s big on socially-conscious fashion too, citing Stella Jean and Suno as two of her current favorite brands. “They’re doing great things, I think, with the whole eco-ethical side of fashion at the moment. They’re really good at incorporating patterns and textiles and fabrics from all over the world,” she states matter-of-factly.
A well-dressed, pretty girl with a good heart? You can see the appeal.
Photos by Artu Nepomuceno