The cast of Filipiñana brought homegrown design to this year’s Berlinale, armed with vintage lace and sculptural lamé.
At the 76th Berlin International Film Festival (Berlinale), the European premiere of Filipiñana unfolded as an orchestrated introduction of contemporary Filipino fashion to a global audience. For stylist and costume designer Carla Villanueva, the red carpet was an extension of the film’s measured, deliberate, and collaborative visual language.
“A lot of considerations came into play when conceptualizing the looks for the cast and crew for our European premiere,” she explains. “Discussions between stylist Mano Gonzales and I were focused on bringing designers from home [that were] representative of each person’s personal style, and how to interpret modern Filipino fashion with a larger world view for an international audience. Filipiñana itself is a subtly stylish and nuanced film in terms of costume design and world building, so it was important to us to reflect this in the initial introduction to the viewing public and press before they even watch the film.”
As the first feature for director Rafael Manuel, and much of its cast and crew, the moment carried particular weight. “It was important for the entire team to present as seriously as the themes in the film itself, and we tapped all of our favorite home-grown talent to make sure we conveyed this message immediately,” Carla says.
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For lead actress Jorrybell Agoto, Carla’s vision was singular: the Paris-based wunderkind Jude Macasinag. “Jude for me was the only choice for our star Jorrybell,” she says. “There is a wonderful quality to his work that absolutely needs to be seen on the red carpet, on a global stage, and a combination of playfulness and seriousness in craft that both he and Jorrybell possess in their respective fields as artists.”
The ensemble combined a silk organza tank top with a modified robe de style skirt, adorned with a siren beadwork motif developed from the designer’s research into interwar Paris. The skirt, crafted from printed lamé knit and reinforced with multiple layers of underpinnings, was overlaid with more than two hundred hand-cut, frayed gold lamé strips, granting the effect of delicate feathers in motion.
Its concept drew inspiration from a 1920 image of Denise Poiret in her husband Paul Poiret’s “Mythe” dress, merged with the Sex Pistols’ rendition of “My Way.” The result was a garment that captured both the weight of fashion history and the kinetic energy of performance. Jude reflects on the proximity of disparate icons: “I thought about just how fascinating it was to think that these two contrasting yet equally subversive figures of their own fields and time belonged to the same century, only twelve years apart.”
Jude wanted to depict “an ‘archeological’ fashion object with more contemporary details and techniques, and which shows the physical beauty of time through patina.” Although the ensemble had been intended for a future body of work, it found its moment sooner. “We had the chance to actualize it earlier than planned when I was tapped to dress Jorrybell for the Berlinale,” he explains.
Carla recalls the result in near-mythic terms. The dress, she says, “exists in dualities: gravity and lightness, astute precision and a touch of carelessness. It was an absolute sight to behold, like an excavated star finally revealed to the world.”
For the film’s second lead, Carmen Castellanos, Carla and Mano sought a designer who could capture her innate ease.
“We approached Martin Bautista with a prayer and a dream,” Carla recalls. An original plan to pull an existing look from his collection was thwarted when the piece had already been sold. What followed was a custom couture solution. “With this incredible vintage lace fabric he had been saving in his archive, and a quick mannequin drape to test, the dress immediately manifested into exactly what we needed.”
Martin’s gown for Carmen Castellanos was drawn from a long-held archive of abstract lace, selected specifically for the Berlinale moment. The dress featured a mother-of-pearl buckle, a collaboration with Neil Felipp that originated from their first joint project in 2024, adding a subtle but distinctive accent to the piece. The textile’s pattern set the gown apart, while the shape, cut, and treatment reflected Martin’s unmistakable design DNA.
For Carmen, the dress operated on both aesthetic and narrative levels. “I completely fell in love with the details—the texture of the fabric, the way it sculpted and fit my body, the wrap detail at the hips, and especially the shell element,” she says. “In many ways, it really did encapsulate the essence of my role, particularly through its layers and the emotional complexity of the character. There’s so much more to what she’s going through beneath the surface, and I felt that the dress mirrored that beautifully.”
On a festival stage defined by international scrutiny, the Filipiñana premiere read as a calibrated display of design heritage, emerging craft, and creative alignment. Before the first frame of the film flickered onscreen, its considered, layered, and recognizably Filipino world had announced itself already.
Photos courtesy of Martin Bautista and Carla Villanueva
