Note: I’ve always been a fan of Travel + Leisure–I even placed in one of my old dreamboards (ca. 2010) the desire to write for this magazine and to live the “travel + leisure lifestyle.” So you can only imagine how thrilled I am to finally be able to write for them, and to feature no less than one of my favorite Filipino brands, Rags2Riches. Happily sharing an excerpt here for all of you 🙂
Scrappy Fashion
Social enterprise Rags2Riches transformed the lowly foot rug into a high-fashion statement. By Niña Terol-Zialcita
(Published in the October 2013 issue of Travel + Leisure Southeast Asia)
A dumping ground hardly seems like the proper incubator for high fashion, but for Philippine brand Rags2Riches (R2R), it was the perfect jumping-off point for an “eco-ethical” revolution.
In Payatas, where half a million of Manila’s urban poor reside, scraps of cloth are turned into foot rugs and sold to traders for US$0.20 a day. Enter a group of young idealists out to change the lives of Payatas’s poor, an haute couture designer willing to make a difference, and the audacious goal of turning rags into coveted fashion items–and just like that a stylish social statement was born.
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This is an excerpt only. To read the full article, grab a copy of Travel + Leisure Southeast Asia’s October 2013 issue.
