threading culture

Designer Jo Ann Bitagcol is telling us a story at her atelier in Poblacion, Makati. The space is full of Filipiniana clothing under her brand Bitagcol and the walls feature her framed photos of vintage pieces that are more than a hundred years old.  

How she was discovered as a model is quite a famous story because it’s the stuff that movies are made of. Sometime in the ‘90s, Jo Ann was having meryenda in a local eatery in Malolos, Bulacan during Holy Week when a fashion designer, makeup artist, and director & production designer, happened to be in the same panciteria, and noticed her.  

Even then she was quite hard to miss—this tall, slim and beautiful in an androgynous kind of way girl just out of high school. The trio had come to Malolos to watch the procession and do Visita Iglesia. In the unlikeliest places and time of year, they recognized something in her that they knew would light up fashion runways and magazine covers. 

The trio from Manila asked her, “Do you want to become a model?”  

Jo Ann’s response was “Huh?” She says that back then in the province there was a perception that “beautiful women were only the mestiza type. The beauty queens were mestiza, the models were mestiza. Even my own awareness of beauty was like that. And I was the chinita type, a bit androgynous, and very unconventional.”  

Jo Ann was then working as a factory worker in a cotton mill, transforming cotton into yarns that were going to be exported to India. Modeling sounded like an easier job. She shrugged and said, “Okay.”  

Call it destiny, call it a statistical probability that they were in the same place because most restaurants were closed. But on that Good Friday, a supermodel was born.   

WEARABLE FILIPINIANA

In all her years in fashion, Jo Ann felt she could do something more behind the scenes. After modeling she became a stylist, a fashion show director, then she discovered a love for photography which let her remain in fashion but also to do something new, something more creative.  

Behind the counter at the entrance of her atelier are the photos she took of intricately embroidered baro with butterfly sleeves made from fiber so delicate it could almost pass off as gauze. Set against a black background—both the photo and the subject are works of art in works of art.  

Jo Ann took these photos for the book Fashionable Filipina: An Evolution of the Philippine National Dress in Photographs 1860-1960, which businessman and retailer Ben Chan, educator Mark Higgins and scenographer Gino Gonzales produced in 2015. As the photographer for the book, she would go with Gino from one collector’s house to another where the terno owners would pull these pieces from bauls to be photographed.  

The ternos, barong tagalog and baro’t saya inspired her so much that she began making scarves with prints of the photos that didn’t make the cut for the book. One of her outstanding outtakes is of an old set of mirror, brush, comb and perfume bottle embellished with silver. It conjured those times when every woman had a vanity with an oval mirror and they took their time to comb their hair.  

Another scarf is printed with four barong tagalog clipped on clotheslines. The four differently colored squares bring to mind Andy Warhol’s silkscreen paintings of Marilyn Monroe.   

What a different life, how different the streets of Manila must have looked when Filipinos dressed the way they did in Jo Ann’s photographs.  

Pretty soon, she was doing pop-ups, then bazaars, and people quickly took notice of her designs. That encouraged her to produce more. “The Love Local campaign is very strong. To be honest, I thought of using the outtakes only as a marketing tool,” she says.   

But the more she looked at the whole Filipiniana ecosystem—the weavers, the fibers, the styles, the history, the vintage collections—the more she fell in love with it.   

Ben Chan had said that “we have to respect the silhouette of the terno so that we retain the integrity of the national costume. It should remain elegant and modest…it is part of our national identity.” 

That was a hundred percent true, but in doing so the terno would remain frozen in time—like Jo Ann’s photos of them.  There had to be a way to make the old look new, for this traditional dress to become a part of our everyday life—that was the purpose.  

Jo Ann’s photos were the answer. It wasn’t altering the Filipiniana, it was literally putting it on modern silhouettes. In her atelier, you will find T-shirts, pants, skirts, and dresses in modern cuts and fabrics, but printed with her photos of vintage Filipiniana.  

“It was evolving and encouraging” she says. “The clients really pushed us to create something out of it, to make it wearable because they wanted to wear contemporary Filipiniana, so this motivated me to produce everyday wear as a way for Filipinos to embrace our identity, who we are.”  

Her exploration in fashion began in the summer of 2019, when she began to transfer her images onto scarves made of silk satin. In the same year, Jo Ann debuted her first collection. Her wearable collection has since grown and changed, ranging from her collection of vintage photos in "Baul" to nostalgic flower designs in "Alaala." 

Some designs are quirky nods that you can’t help but chuckle. Like the back of a T-shirt printed with the back of a barong tagalog; a plain black shawl printed with the traditional baro shawl, a tapis to wear over your skirt or loose pants that deceivingly embroidered.   

Her pieces were a hit. Eventually, she opened her own showroom in 2024 and officially establishing her clothing brand, “BITAGCOL.” 

Jo Ann still designs the traditional Filipiniana for special occasions, but it’s her modern pieces that she’s become known for. They have brought young people into her atelier, who actually wear them when they travel abroad, proudly earing their heritage in the streets of Paris or New York.  

When fellow Filipinos abroad recognize these prints, there is that little acknowledgement of a fellow Filipino whose lola sa tuhod also had those ternos.  

THE ENERGY YOU PUT OUT TO THE WORLD

There is a strong yet peaceful energy that flows in this atelier. It radiates from Jo Ann herself, from her ageless face to her calm voice—this sense of tranquil balance, this clarity that can only be achieved from not trying so hard to get it.   

Jo Ann pauses when we ask her about the boldest decisions she’s made in her life. She tries to find the right words to say that every transition has seemed like it was meant to be, yet at the same time “it wasn't intentional.”  

From the lanky chinita girl who worked at a factory to being a supermodel, to suddenly holding a camera in her hands as a professional, and now designing Filipiniana.  

Everything, of course, has led to game-changing moments not just in her life but in the lives of her family and the community around her.  

“For me a gamechanger is someone who stays true to themselves and to the people around them. At the same time, you adapt, you innovate,” she says. “Being true to your roots but still innovating. I think my entire life has been about changing the game, but that’s because I’ve had support that is just unbelievable; it’s massive and non-stop. I'm so grateful for that. Even when you work so hard, if you don't have support—it's nothing.”  

CHARMED, HEALING DOLLS

During the pandemic, another burst of creativity from Jo Ann produced something new: “tripolar” dolls. “It’s another medium of expression for me, these fabric sculptures,” she explains. “Tripolar means tapping your higher self because both polars are extreme, so tri or the third is above these polar opposites. It represents no judgement, but just sending unconditional love out there. It’s being in the center of both, so you just absorb and allow.”  

They’re actually voodoo dolls but have the opposite purpose. “You wish someone well, you give unconditional love. It’s all about healing.”  

Jo Ann makes them from fabric, a better material than what they started with, which was canvas. She uses indigenous fabrics such as piña to dress them up. Then the dolls are mounted on acrylic with a wood wrapped in canvas for a backdrop. The ones in her atelier are her third series. Tripolar 2.0 was exhibited at the Vinyl on Vinyl Gallery, while first series and exhibit was at Avellana Art Gallery in 2015. 

The actual act of making these dolls, she says, is very stimulating. “It's like you're blessing the garment. You're doing something good and you feel good about it. You're spreading light and energy also.” 

“Every new creative outlet is an inspiration,” she says. “When you get the call, you respond. If it's an invite, you join in and you answer, and you dance. You just go with the flow. I think I’ve always had that in me, but now I'm just more open about it because it did me well. It gave me this. So, I’m simply channeling it to others. I'm just a vessel.” 

Perhaps we can all take a page from Jo Ann Bitagcol’s book of Zen. “I'm happy now because I'm at peace. That's more than enough abundance.”