No scripts, no prompts, just pure Heart.
PHOTOGRAPHED BY JOEL LOW. STYLED BY KENNETH GOH. TEXT BY AARON KOK. Heart wears high jewellery from Tiffany & Co. throughout.
Finding Her Own Voice
By now, the world knows her as the Philippines’ reigning style icon, muse of fashion weeks, painter of Birkins, and most recently, star and producer of her own reality show, Heart World. Yet during our hour-long chat, what surfaces most is an intangible quality of courage and vulnerability that’s rare for someone of her stature. She’s disarmingly honest, self-deprecating even.
“I’ve always felt like a lemon,” she tells me, half joking. “Like I was born broken. I’m always sad. I don’t even know why, but that’s why I paint and that’s why I dress up. It’s my way of fighting it.”
Earlier this year, Heart turned 40. While that milestone number has launched many into mid-life crisis, it has done quite the opposite for her. “I’m finally free,” she expresses. “I can now say that I have found my voice. I know when to say no. I don’t have to scream to be heard. There’s a kind of strength you get with age, and it truly is earned as you grow up.”
She calls it her soft power era—when you no longer need to ask for permission to exist a certain way. She muses that her younger self may have had to work tirelessly to meet the expectations placed upon her being in the media spotlight, but at 40, Heart has shifted her focus inwards. Her art, her clothes, her content—all of it stems from a deeply personal place.
