We all know that a beauty queen doesn’t succeed on her own—newly-crowned Miss Universe Catriona Gray is no exception. She had her family, friends, and over 104 million Filipinos supporting her as she competed in the international pageant. Aside from them, we gotta give it up for the team who’s helped through this journey—from her stylist to the designers. Let’s take this time to recognize them and their efforts.
Mak Tumang
Mak Tumang has been designing Catriona’s gowns since Binibining Pilipinas 2018. During the Miss Universe competition proper, she wore two stand-out pieces from the designer: the Ibong Adarna gown in the prelims and the Mayon volcano gown in the finals. You just know by looking at the pieces that Mak worked hard to turn these into reality.
Jearson Demavivas
Catriona’s elaborate national costume, which represented Luzon, Visayas, and Mindanao, was designed by Jearson Demavivas. The outfit featured a giant parol with a painting featuring festivals, victories, and heroes from the Philippines, and also “Lupang Hinirang” lyrics in Baybayin.
Jearson also designed some of the pieces Catriona wore while in Thailand. These mostly featured ethnic patterns and fabrics from various provinces in the Philippines.
Tessera Jewelry
This is the brand that created the iconic three stars and a sun ear cuff that Catriona wore in Binibining Pilipinas and Miss Universe. It’s practically a good luck charm at this point. Tessera is known for their bespoke diamond jewelry and they create other statement pieces as well, like drop earrings and necklaces.
Vhee Co, Francis Chee, Cath Sobrevega, Andrea Aliman, Patrick Henry, and Ton Lao
These stylists made sure that Catriona looked her best in all her outfits. You can thank them for dressing the beauty queen in locally-made clothes and accessories throughout the whole journey.
Jelly Eugenio
As reported before, Catriona did her own makeup during the preliminary competition. She has makeup artist Jelly Eugenio to thank for training her before the pageant. He told ABS-CBN Lifestyle that Catriona took his lessons seriously and learned quickly, especially since she’s been a model for the longest time. For the Miss Universe pageant, he shared that they wanted the look to be “sultrier, playful, sexy but still [a] classy beauty queen vibe.”
Brent Sales
For hair, Catriona’s mentor was Brent Sales. In the duration of the competition, she kept her hair sleek and simple, and for the pageant, she added soft curls to add volume to her hair. Looks like Catriona took a lot of notes and did a great job at styling her tresses.
Jolo Luarca III
If you’ve seen Catriona’s videos dedicated to Luzon, Visayas, and Mindanao, Jolo Luarca III is the guy who shot all of them. He is also the one behind Catriona’s first music video for “We’re In This Together.”
Jojo Bragais
Jojo Bragais had several roles: designer of some of Catriona’s heels, producer for the video we mentioned in the previous point, and also helped shoot her music video. Talk about an all-around guy.
Art by Marian Hukom
Photo courtesy of Inquirer.net via AP Photo/Gemunu Amarasinghe
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