Last week was pretty crazy, what with the corporate seven-day fast at my church, practice sessions for BODYJAM at the gym, and a taping for ShopTV Live. There was one unexpected racket that I received during that week: to host the Voters Education gig at SaGuijo organized by Soniclogo.tv. It featured indie bands such as Drip, Techy Romantics, Wagyu, and Beatbox Philippines as well as a demonstration of the PCOS machine by Gaye Cabalo of Smartmatic.

(PCOS stands for Precinct Count Optical Scan. It can also mean Poly-Cystic Ovarian Syndrome, but you can’t use that to vote with, right?)

The event was sponsored by BagongBotante.ph, IbaNaNgayon.ph, Smartmatic, and COMELEC. It was basically a way to bring awareness of the new way to vote. Check out the websites to find out more.

Azrael was there to cover the event, and he took these great photos of me while hosting:

with Ms. Gaye showing the new ballot design

Paul hired me

I was brought in nearly at the last minute because the original host had to rush someone to the hospital. So I braved the maze-like streets of Makati, ignored the SaGuijo mosquitoes, and pretty much had a great time listening to the bands play from 9:30pm to 3:30am.

Hopefully I get to host more events. Loved loved loved it!

Tags: Voters Education, Event Host

Last November 14, I joined the Headshot Clinic Project OneYouth shoot sponsored by Globe Tattoo at Cava! in Somerset Hotel, Makati. So I trooped there, was handed a number and a release form (pretty much signing away my rights to use of my face from that shoot), and waited for Niccolo Cosme of Project Headshot Clinic to finish setting up.

We had to decide what advocacy to support: poverty eradication, improvement of education, gender equality and women’s rights, maternal and child welfare, combating communicable diseases, and environmental sustainability. Our advocacies would appear in our headshots. I chose Education because I believe a lot of problems in society are caused by ignorance, lack of ability for independent and analytical thought, and improper civic socialization — all of which can be remedied by proper education.

It was a very simple shoot, with a painted backdrop, one or two light sources, and a bounce board. From what I understand, Niccolo post-processes Headshot Clinic photos a certain way to give them a hyper-real look. He’s already done many other ones, like the One World series which featured my friend Luke, and most recently and prominently UNAIDS MOVE for AIDS awareness, which our very own YogaJane was part of.

We were told that we would be emailed a download link to our photos during the December 2009 launch of the Youth Vote online forums. We were asked to upload our headshots immediately to our social media accounts so that people would be pointed toward the forums. The forums would facilitate discussion leading to the creation of the OneYouth Manifesto, containing the advocacies supported by the youth to be presented to future leaders. It was a very noble cause indeed.

photo by Niccolo Cosme

The photos turned out great, and the shoot was a success. Niccolo was very easy to please and I was done in less than two minutes. I met the lovely Hannah (of Flaircandy.com) there, and she has one of the most beautiful photos from the set, which you can view at the Globe Tattoo website.

The only failing? Lack of follow-through and coordination among the agencies involved. When December rolled around, the Youth Vote forums still hadn’t been launched, our photos hadn’t been uploaded, and Headshot Clinic was busy promoting MOVE. I was finally able to download a low-res version of my photo when the Tattoo website finally updated with our photos on December 15.

Last week, the Globe OneYouth team sent me an email:

Dear OneYouth Ambassador,

Good day!

We have just uploaded your OneYouth Headshot photo online. Your photo contains the advocacy that you support, along with other information about you. Your photo is now free for you to download at the Globe Tattoo site.

To grab your photo from the OneYouth gallery, follow these steps:

• Log in to the Globe Tattoo site with your username and password
• Visit the OneYouth gallery
• Click on “View All” button on the right-hand side of the site.
• Type your name on the search box.
• Grab your widget at the Flash pop-up.

Thank you for your support of OneYouth, and we hope you enjoy your photos. See you guys soon!

Even here I encountered a road block. The website requires a valid email address to release my widget, but won’t accept the email address I supplied them with (which was the email address they sent that message to). I can’t even email the OneYouth team to ask for help, because they sent their email from a noreply address. I’m not even sure if there really is any effective discussion taking place on the Youth Philippines online forum, because the website is so darned hard to navigate.

I hate to come down on Globe like this, but this was a FAIL from my viewpoint. I’m writing this post now because I’m frustrated and I have no idea to whom to address my concerns. I mean, seriously, I signed away rights to my likeness from that shoot, only to have it misused this way? Hay nako…

Tags: Globe Tattoo, Headshot Clinic, OneYouth, Fail

The recently revamped UNO Magazine threw its first fashion show last November 16 at the NBC Tent, and I received an invitation to attend it. You all should know by now I’m a sucker for fashion shows, so I jumped at the chance to dress up and make a night out of it. Ü

Titled “Man Up!”, the UNO fashion show presented menswear modeled by women, styled by Mara Reyes (Gas, Bench, and Diesel), Tricia Gosingtian (Massimo Dutti, Marithe e Francois Girbaud, and Levi’s), Xie Antonio (Gap, Celio, and DC), and Dominique Tiu (Blued, Raoul, and Marks&Spencer;). I first met Tricia when she photographed cosplayers (including Alodia Gosiengfiao) for my article on cosplay in the Philippines. She’s only 21 and in her 4th year of college, but she’s already styling for a major fashion show — props to her!

I arrived right on time, as the invitation said “6:30pm”. While I was wandering the precincts all by myself, I bumped into RJ Ledesma, the editor-in-chief, who I had met briefly at the UNO Bloggers and Contributors Night. (I also added him on Facebook. LOL) I was surprised when he approached and greeted me.

RJ: Hey! Where are the other six?
Me: Six? What six? Huh wait — who do you think I am?
RJ: (brief pause) Well, I think you’re Noelle.
Me: Yes, I’m Noelle but I didn’t bring six others with me. (awkward!)
RJ: Oh it must have been another Noelle who said “me plus six”. Well, thanks for coming early!

Oops.

After that, I texted Jayvee, who told me he was on his way. I was quite pleased to find fellow bloggers Fritz, Jane, and Dhon to sit with, and we attempted to find seats that weren’t in the direct path of the aircon vents. There was free-flowing food by Tamayo’s Catering and beer by San Miguel (I keep trying to appreciate it, but I still hate the taste of beer. Yech.), and guests kept pouring in as well. I think we stole seats meant for some of the celebrities who showed up, since I saw Joey Mead and Iza Calzado on their feet when the show finally started around 8:30pm.

Women as tall as men can wear menswear.

I recognized some of the models who strode down that runway — Grendel Alvarado, Ornusa Cadness (who was UNO’s October cover), Isabel Roces, and Ana Sideco. Three changes per model, but the show ran along smoothly. You can check out photos from the UNO Fashion Show on my Multiply.

And what did I wear? Oh, just something I threw on:

this old thing?

It was dressed up enough to stand up against the well-heeled women at the fashion show, but fun enough to wear at the after-party at Members Only.

So what do I think of the show? It’s an interesting concept, having women wear men’s clothing. It certainly must have been a challenge to keep the models looking sexy in boxy men’s cuts. And really, how creative can you get with button-down shirts, sweaters, shorts, and pants? But I watched these items of clothings come down the ramp transformed into skirts and dresses.

What I didn’t see were women wearing men’s business suits — pinstripes, neckties, formal jackets, fedoras, suspenders. At the end of the show, RJ promised an even bigger fashion show next year, and he left me a comment on Facebook saying that next year I could expect to see that sort of stuff. Hope so! Congratulations to the stylists and to UNO Magazine for a kick-ass event. Ü

Tags: Fashion Show, UNO Magazine, Menswear