The Niru Collection by LOJEL arrives with a portrait of contemporary Filipino creativity, where careers, passions, and daily movement rarely stay in one lane.
Manila has always had its own definition of distance that can’t be measured simply by hours and kilometers alone. For a growing number of Filipinos, distance now measures the space between the different lives a single person can hold. LOJEL, the Japan-born travel and lifestyle brand, has built its newest global campaign around exactly this idea, and it has chosen the Philippines as one of its central stages. Its campaign From Here to Everywhere accompanies the launch of LOJEL’s Niru Collection: a line of 12 silhouettes that includes weekender bags, backpacks, totes, slings, and crossbody styles.
Where LOJEL’s reputation was built on hard-shell suitcases designed for long-haul flights, Niru turns its attention closer to home, toward the commutes, meetings, workouts, and unplanned detours that make up the bulk of modern life.
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The Faces Of Modern Movement
In line with LOJEL’s commitment to community, sustainability, creativity, and empowerment, LOJEL Philippines turned to 11 individuals whose careers move between disciplines the way the collection moves between contexts, shifting shape without losing identity.
Nica Del Rosario opens the roster. The songwriter behind BINI’s “Karera” and the voice behind her own single “Rosas,” spends her days split between writing rooms, stages, and community work. Her music has always drawn from lived experience, and that instinct for turning the personal into the collective runs through the entire campaign.
Audrey Cruz tells a similar story from a different kitchen. What started as a pandemic side hustle has become OnlyPans Taqueria, now one of Manila’s more recognizable dining concepts. Cruz moves between menu development, hospitality, and the daily logistics of running a growing business, proof that a restaurant can function as both a source of income and a place for community.
Designer Rio Cuervo, founder of RIOtaso, approaches fashion from the opposite direction of most young labels. She builds her collections from deadstock fabric and discarded textiles, treating what other designers discard as raw material for something new. Her practice argues that sustainability and craftsmanship aren’t opposing forces but the same skill applied twice. Through her project Ang Manileña, illustrator Ross Du recalls old magazine spreads, capturing the parts of Manila that locals walk past without noticing. Her work suggests that home isn’t a location so much as an accumulation of small, repeated moments.
Perfumer Shale Albao trained at ISIPCA in France before returning home to found Tadhana, where she distills memory and place into scent. Stylist Jana Silao, treats wardrobes as narrative devices rather than seasonal purchases, favoring longevity over trend cycles.
Model and dancer Agatha Gutierrez uses her body as her primary language, moving between campaign sets and choreographed performance with the same fluidity. Landscape architect Vincent Lim, founder of CLARQ Landscape Design, designs public and private spaces meant to hold people and nature in the same frame, arguing that where we move matters as much as where we’re headed.
Photographer and documentary filmmaker Renzo Maano spends weeks at a time among endangered wildlife and remote communities, returning with images that treat travel as a form of attention rather than escape. Jagger Studios Creative director Arj Madarang has shaped visual stories for various publications, turning ordinary shoots into images with staying power. And Brian Dimarucot, founder of Moss Escape, builds miniature terrariums that compress entire ecosystems into a single glass container, a design practice he describes as a form of personal healing.
Together, these 11 lives make up a cross-section of contemporary Manila, where creative ambition rarely stays confined to a single job title.
Taking The Journey Further With LOJEL
LOJEL is extending the conversation past its own campaign photography through #FromHereToEverywhere: an invitation for people across Asia-Pacific to document their own version of daily movement using the Niru Collection.
The Niru Collection is now available at the LOJEL store on Level 2, South Wing, Main Mall, SM Mall of Asia, at select The Travel Club stores, Rustan’s Makati, select SM Stores, and online via The Travel Club. Follow @lojeljourneys and @primergroup on Instagram and join the conversation by sharing where your Niru takes you using #FromHereToEverywhere, #LojelPH, and #LojelJourneys.
Photos courtesy of LOJEL Philippines
Frequently Asked Questions
The LOJEL Niru Collection is a line of everyday bags designed for daily movement. It includes 12 styles such as backpacks, totes, slings, crossbody bags, and weekenders for work, commuting, and travel.
From Here to Everywhere is LOJEL’s global campaign celebrating everyday movement. It highlights how people balance different roles, careers, and routines using the Niru Collection as an everyday companion.
The campaign features 11 Filipino creatives, including songwriter Nica Del Rosario, restaurateur Audrey Cruz, illustrator Ross Du, designer Rio Cuervo, perfumer Shale Albao, stylist Jana Silao, model and dancer Agatha Gutierrez, landscape architect Vincent Lim, photographer Renzo Maano, creative director Arj Madarang, and terrarium artist Brian Dimarucot.
The Niru Collection includes backpacks, totes, weekender bags, slings, crossbody bags, and other everyday carry styles designed for different routines and occasions.
