Past, Present, Preview

*** (Chapter 1) ***

“You can be Andre Leon Talley and I’ll be Grace Coddington,” Myrza Sison told Jose Raymond Lontok in late 1994. 

The pair, having abandoned a recently launched but soon-to-be-short-lived fashion publication, was on the brink of transforming the magazine industry and thus outfitting themselves with titles fitting of the disruption. In six months, they were going to release a new glossy the likes the local fashion community hadn’t seen before. 

It was to be Preview, the 29-year-old style journal, which, in 1995, was the edgy challenger among established fashion glossies like MEGA and Metro and “parlor” staples like Mod and Woman Today. 

Far from the PR-courted image reinforced by movies like The Devil Wears Prada and Confessions of a Shopaholic and the influential powerhouse it is now, Preview, in its early days, was sustained only by savvy resourcefulness, goodwill, and a little bit of pleading. 

To the rest of the industry, it looked like a shiny, head-turning, elegant upstart—one you treat with Gatsby-esque suspicion but also fascination. Behind the manicured pages, however, was a less-than-glitzy story of squatting and…meat?

Fashion Flies

Lisa Gokongwei had just returned from New York when she decided to launch a magazine. But she needed a few pieces, such as key people to jumpstart the project. A common friend led her to Lontok, who, at that time was already a top fashion and advertising photographer as well as a designer. 

Lontok had just finished a photo exhibit in Glorietta and, as if serendipitously, it was styled like 140 pages of a magazine, complete with covers, editorials, and ads. The common friend, Rose Tanalgo, proclaimed that his work was what magazines should be like. So, when Gokongwei asked Lontok what he could bring to the table, he photocopied his exhibit and presented it to her. 

Gokongwei was sold—and Lontok, now creative director, brought in Sison to run the fashion. They needed another person to manage the content. A few weeks later, Gokongwei introduced them to Leah Puyat who had been an editorial assistant for MEGA and had worked for the Manila Times. 

The rapport was instantaneous—so much so that after they’d just met, Lontok drove Puyat to Jing Monis and asked the renowned hairstylist to give her a makeover. “How can you be editor-in-chief with your hair like that?! Jing, bigyan mo siya ng look. Siya ang magiging editor-in chief.” 

Beginning January 2, 1995, there they were: eager 20-somethings hunched over a conjoined desk outgrown by Gokongwei’s twin sisters. Their only other piece of furniture was a chess table with a horsehead base donated by Gokongwei’s brother, Lance. 

“That was our layout table,” remembers Lontok. “I remember the newsmen because they came in at three in the afternoon, so I would use their Mac computers until they arrived,” adds Sison.

Air-conditioning was wishful thinking, and often they would come to work greeted by flies and the stench of stale meat—courtesy of the meat shop above their basement “office.” 

“We’ve had employees leave because of the office. We had one girl, she looked around and saw she had no chair, just a monobloc, and she never showed up again,” adds Sison. 

But the work sustained them, and often they would sing in mirth as they curated the latest fashions. “They sent us a memo because we kept singing Sharon Cuneta songs, even to the tune of Sesame Street,” remembers Lontok.

Sison says: “I always thought, ‘Wow, this is a job? How fun, you know?” 

True Grit

“The biggest milestone of Preview was that we made something out of nothing,” declares Lontok. “Laway lang ang puhunan namin noon.”

In those initial stages, the trio recollects how no one took the magazine project seriously. “We had no budget because it was not considered a [JG] company. Lance would say it’s just another one of [his] sister’s crazy ideas,” shares Sison.

They made up for what they lacked in capital with something more valuable: connections. Coupled with the tenacity of young emergents, they had a formidable formula for success, which was demonstrated in the first issue, published in June 1995.

Sison, a prolific model herself, invited her friend model-actress Tweetie de Leon to grace the maiden cover, which Lontok shot in his garage. 

“In those first two years, we relied on our friends a lot,” recalls Puyat. Lontok did most of the photoshoots himself—or he would tap Lita Puyat, Leah’s cousin. Sison religiously attended industry parties and snapped up the It crowd, giving readers an unlimited, intimate look at Manila’s who’s who. 

“Our advantage was our youth. We were insiders; we had access. We weren’t outsiders guessing how to do fashion,” explains Lontok. “The top people in the industry were our friends, so we had access to models, makeup artists, writers.” 

Still, there was a lot of do-it-yourself. “Magazine work is arduous, but it doesn’t pay a lot,” says Puyat. “We had to do so much work on our own, especially for the first few issues.” Even the advertisers were brought in by Lontok from his former life.

Because they didn’t have much, the magazine had no room for fluff or filler. “Every issue was packed, walang tapon. We were giving it our all, using all our resources,” Puyat adds.

“Our disadvantage became our advantage,” says Sison, recalling that for MEGA’s fifth anniversary, the pioneering publication had 10-foot-tall M, E, G, A letters in the background. “We were like, oh my God, wala kaming pera for that!”

Instead, the enterprising Preview team came up with a “warehouse” concept. “Kami ‘yong unang pa-cool kids na nag warehouse launch,” Sison adds. The word “preview” was spelled out in black-painted Styrofoam and the media kits doubled as background décor. Lontok provided the stages himself and Sison styled all 30 models. Their biggest expense was spending P20,000 on a video that, due to a cheap sound system, ran without sound.

Suffice it to say, they turned penny-pinching into something gritty, edgy, and new. 

In a way, it launched the groundwork for their vision. Having nothing allowed them a level of control that made them create, introduce, and nurture that now signature Preview brand. 

“In one of our brainstorming meetings, Raymond asked why we should use stylists and makeup people that everybody is already featuring,” Puyat says. “Let’s go out there and find new people. Let’s be the break they need.”

Predating Inclusivity

Lontok, Sison, and Puyat eschewed the typical magazine practices of the ’90s. Instead of waiting for press releases to drop on their laps and inserting them into the pages, Lontok insisted on shooting every item they featured, while Puyat preferred digestible content that people would actually read. 

“Dati point your toes, pout your lips, put your hand on your waist. That was modeling before,” Lontok says. “It didn’t show the lifestyle. There was no flow, no vibe.”

Sison adds: “Before, other magazines would have articles then have a token fashion spread in between. It wasn’t organic.” 

To break away from this mindset, Preview began hiring a new breed of photographers who could deliver a higher level of storytelling—household names now, such as Xander Angeles and Paolo Pineda. 

Lontok also pioneered the idea of the “editorial model.” “Before, the runway models…they had the right body, the right proportions, but they weren’t always photogenic. We started to use more ‘photographic models.’”

“We were always anti-establishment,” adds Sison. “Ang kakapal nung makeup ng competition before, so we did no-makeup makeup.” Preview, she says, was also the first magazine to draw attention to all the complexions of Filipino women. 

“We were the first to verbalize terms like kayumanggi, chinita, morena. We gave names to those complexions,” she adds.  

It was, on some level, fashion that was accessible. They rebuffed—or, rather, went beyond haute couture to showcase styles that were replicable. Sison’s fashion editorials mixed and matched items from designers but also retail—uncommon at that time. 

“Other magazines did it the easy way, using one designer for the whole spread, but no one in real life wears clothes like that,” says Sison. Preview also initiated publishing the prices of the items—another detail that’s now a staple in fashion coverage and perhaps serves as a precursor to Preview.ph’s popular “How Much It Costs” series.

A few months after Preview magazine’s launch, the tide of fashion journalism changed. The age of the supermodel was waning, and actors were taking over. To stay ahead of the competition, the team overhauled their scheduled cover, model Ivy Primicias, in favor of 1995 Gawad Urian Best Actress Gelli de Belen. It was a controversial, if not bridge-burning, move, but one that defined the type of content that Preview would become known for. 

“I feel Preview even predated Vogue with doing that. We would take a celebrity and do the fashion and beauty treatment,” says Puyat. “We wanted to connect to the public through these celebrities that they admire.”

After all, that’s why it was called Preview—it represented being a step ahead. It was the answer to what was next. 

The Preview Signature

In a few short months, Preview received its much-deserved validation when Inno Sotto described it as “a real fashion magazine.” Barely a year since its launch, the legendary fashion designer called on Preview to be the media partner of the 1995 ASEAN Design Show, the fashion event. 

“We got exclusives, and we got to do the special supplement that was like the big souvenir and all the fashion shows,” Puyat says. “That was a big deal, because we were just in our first year, and they could have gone to all our other colleagues, but the fact that the local fashion designers, and like the big, big names in fashion at the time, recognized us and what we could do? They liked our viewpoint. They liked our creativity. That was a big thing.”

Another campaign that Preview introduced was a cover girl contest for readers who had model dreams. “We wanted to give them that shot. I enjoyed going through the mail and seeing all the letters for aspiring cover girls,” adds Puyat. This contest would eventually inspire similar efforts by other Summit Media (Preview’s parent company) magazines, such as the annual Candy Cover Search, which was revived in 2023.

When Preview opened doors, Puyat believes it opened minds, too. “I feel that we showed others that you don’t have to think the way we do, and we don’t have to think the way you do, but let’s try and look at other perspectives. That was a big thing for us during our time.”

Provocative for the period, Preview did articles on a gay Santa Cruzan, questioned whether Filipinos were becoming less religious, and revealed the challenges and liberation of sex-change operations. It was eye-opening and revolutionary and made the Preview team trailblazers in fashion content.

It was a reputation and responsibility that Lontok didn’t take lightly. Much like when he took Puyat for her new Preview-approved makeover, he wore a suit to work every day. The fashion in the magazine was accessible but the team behind it had to be aspirational. “Dapat arrive!” he puts it. 

Sison left Preview in less than two years to run Cosmopolitan Philippines—a franchise Summit Media was able to acquire due to Preview’s success. Lontok resigned a year later and Puyat five months in his wake. But their mark on the magazine remains indelible and much of their original vision has remained with Preview to this day. 

*** (Chapter 2) ***

The Fashion Elite

Vogue post-Diana Vreeland has often been described as the “beige years.” Never mind that her successor, Grace Mirabella removed the magazine’s out-of-reach “fashion as theater” credo and tripled sales with her down-to-earth sensibilities. Never mind that she put the first Black woman on Vogue’s cover. The fact is her taupe style was sandwiched between Vreeland’s flamboyant aesthetic and Anna Wintour’s reign of print and color. And Vogue’s timeline has since been categorized according to the latter women. After Vreeland. Before Wintour.

For Preview, the post-Lontok, post-Puyat era felt somewhat similar. The magazine was successful and certainly glamorous but also serviceable—which may or may not be a word you want to see describing a fashion magazine. The advent of Cosmo sidelined its personality-focused approach, and the revolving door of short-term editors, including Tatler’s Anton San Diego and society whistleblower Kitty Go, did little to break new ground.

Then came Pauline Juan.

Juan joined the team as a fashion assistant in 1998 before progressing to the top role in 2001. When she stepped down in 2016, Gokongwei-Cheng described her as “an editor who comes once in a lifetime,” adding that “she not only has vision but the talent and image you associate with a person in fashion.” 

Juan revived, if not amplified, the stature of fashion editors, particularly Preview editors. Her Preview served as a springboard for now industry juggernauts Vince Uy (who was creative director), Liz Uy (who was fashion editor), Daryl Chang (fashion director), and Agoo Bengzon (beauty editor). 

Between the cubicles of Summit Media, it was rumored that Juan inspected her team’s outfit choices and required them to go out at night because that was “where the industry’s at.” She denies this, however, and states it was often the reverse. 

“It was the staff that held me to the standard of Preview,” she says. “The editorial team and even readers would come up to me and say, ‘Oh, that’s not very Preview.’” 

She only had two requirements. First, diversity, especially in skills: “I won’t hire a dupe of Liz. I would check what she didn’t have and I would hire someone who had it. So in the end, I always had a really strong team.”

The second was Fashion Week, which everyone was mandated to attend. Since ranking the best of Fashion Week was one of the magazine’s mainstays, Juan felt it their responsibility to watch and survey every show. 

“It’s for credibility. You needed to be above reproach in terms of knowledge. You could write better because I know it because I saw it, I lived it, I was there,” she explains. Juan assumes this germinated the gossip that her team had to be fashown.

“When we came to an event, everyone was bihis and everyone came en masse. It may look intimidating, but that was part of the discipline that came into play in the reporting. Even if it was a ‘flimsy’ topic like fashion, the journalistic standards that went behind it were well-formed,” she adds.

Known in the industry as a master at nurturing talent, Juan says her approach was to back off. “I’m not really heavy-handed. It’s never my way or the highway.” Her skill, according to the people who’ve worked with her, was to facilitate collaboration and confidence.

“Brainstorming is my favorite part of the process,” she confesses, revealing that in her first few years when they were young and had better control of their alcohol-addled faculties, they would do pre-production ideation tipsy. 

That may have been one of the secrets. Under her direction, the magazine bannered Filipino designers and celebrated fashion as artistry. Through their pages, Filipinos intimately got to know eventual “It” girls, including then-staff member Liz Uy who first graced the cover in January 2011, designers like Rajo Laurel, Ken Samudio, and Stacy Rodriguez, as well as dozens of photographers, makeup artists, writers, illustrators, directors, and other creatives.

Innovation in Fashion

Much like the early days, in Juan’s hands Preview started on a blank slate. “We had no brand book! The ask was really to create a Filipino fashion magazine and that’s what we tried to do.” 

She admits that they made up much of it as they went along, relying on trial and error and refining it with more exposure and experience. Ultimately, she and her team came up with a refreshingly simple philosophy: HAYOP—hip, approachable, young, opulent (in spirit), and Pinoy. 

To capture this, technology—and social media—was something that Juan studied and applied early on. 

“I remember asking Lisa (Gokongwei) for a budget to run our social media channels,” Juan recalls. “I had to present maybe two or three times why it made sense for the business to have separate content for digital.” 

In 2009, Preview live-streamed its Barbie-themed ball. In 2010, it released an augmented reality cover fronting a budding Solenn Heussaff. In 2014, it came out with a moving cover of Sam Pinto. In July 2015, the cover with Nicole Warne (@garypeppergirl) featured blurbs in emojis. The response wasn’t great initially but their decision was vindicated when TIME magazine came out with an article dissecting how emojis revitalized communication.

At one point, the editors began attaching QR codes to the stories so readers could easily shop the pieces—an innovation similar to today’s shoppable content. Juan describes it as a failure but ahead of its time. 

It was breakthrough after breakthrough—always, as Juan puts it, “breaking the boundaries.” Even at the height of print, Preview got a taste of virality when it launched a series of clips to demonstrate the quintessential Preview Girl. One video, a fashion thriller, showed the consequences of purchasing the wrong handbag. It currently has 11 million views—a triumph even by today’s standards.

Juan’s collaborator, creative director Vince Uy has often said that no concept was ever too crazy and they always challenged how they could exhibit fashion. One example was an editorial with tearaway pages that could be formed into a puzzle. “The idea was to change the experience of reading print,” explains Uy.

One of his favorite spreads was “End of Days,” which tugged at his sci-fi-loving heartstrings. They hired a 3D graphic designer to create images of popular Manila landmarks in various apocalyptic states: Luneta was overcome by a tsunami, the EDSA Shrine was flooded, and the Manila Post Office was hit by an asteroid. 

“The models were in couture. If it’s the end of the world, you might as well wear your best couture,” he recalls. 

“It was an exercise in compositing images,” Juan adds, explaining that photographer Francis Abraham had insisted on merging technology with imagery. This style would later be present in many of Preview’s covers and layouts.

Preview had designers make toddler-sized versions of their collections, created a surreal image that combined the photography skills of BJ Pascual and Mark Nicdao (Ellen Adarna, June 2014), and dared to conceal Anne Curtis’ face (December 2013). 

One of their wilder ideas was to have world-famous fashion editors wear the top 10 collections from Philippine Fashion Week. They took stock photos of Anna Wintour, Anna Dello Russo, and Giovanna Battaglia and superimposed their faces on local couture. “I don’t know if it violated something, but we checked the stock photos and all the rights belonged to the purchaser!” Uy laughs.

In an article for Voyeur.ph, former editor Anna Canlas revealed how she convinced three generals and a press officer to let them shoot at Camp Aguinaldo because Uy wanted a location with an army tank. The ask was hard, but that was Preview’s MO. Everyone aimed to deliver and always to the highest standards. Ornusa Cadness posing in a swimsuit in front of army officers? That’s a different story altogether.

“Looking back, it was all crazy. We just had so much fun,” he muses. “Nakakatawa siya pero ang galing. Parang wow, ‘di ba? We did this!”

The alluring yet aspirational aura that Juan’s team exuded was so enigmatic that it served as TV fodder. Trailing the heels of fashion-themed films and reality shows, Behind the Bylines was a series in 2011 that revealed the machinery of assembling a magazine. 

The Lasting Fashion Fantasy

It’s difficult to corral Juan’s era into a single word or mood, maybe because the magazine constantly adapted, shocked, and awed during her long tenure. 

When Uy joined up, Preview was vastly different from the Vanity Fair vibe it once exuded. Readers were learning about Cristine Jacobs’ marriage to Paco Sandejas, the Cojuangco sisters’ wedding dreams, Hindy Weber’s favorite trends, or Tim Yap and Rissa Mananquil’s model beginnings.

While it’s impossible to talk about Preview’s golden print years without mentioning Juan, the same goes for Uy, whose first major contribution happened before he officially signed on. 

“I remember Liz and I were convincing the team that Anne Curtis was up and coming and that she was going to be the next big thing,” Uy recalls. His foresight turned out accurate—it would be the first of Curtis’ 10 Preview covers. But more importantly, it signaled the return of that fashion-showbiz convergence that Lontok, Puyat, and Sison dreamed up. 

“I was very fascinated with giving celebrities a fashion take. Not just a makeover but more of giving the fantasy of portraying celebrities wearing global trends,” Uy explains. Incidentally, like Lontok, Uy began his career in advertising. 

Preview in the 2010s made cover stars out of Nora Aunor, Maricel Soriano, and Jake Zyrus. It was the first magazine to unleash Jinkee Pacquiao’s fashionable side and also the first to put Judy Ann Santos in designer duds. 

But dressing celebrities in luxurious garb was only the tipping point for a phenomenon beyond the magazine. 

“I feel like that’s when the stylist-celebrity tandem started in the Philippines,” says Uy. After getting stylized in Preview, celebrities began requesting the same treatment in ads and events. “That’s when it started. That appreciation of celebrities intersecting with fashion? We served that fantasy.”

“When celebrities saw themselves dolled up, it fed into the fantasies of a lot of the stars at that time,” Juan adds.

There’s often a lot of talk about the fantasy of fashion in Preview, but the team approached it with a layer of practicality, too.  

For instance, realism became a highlight for one edition of the iconic Preview “Best Dressed.” After all, it’s easy to see the fashion in a professional photo shoot, but how they dressed in real life? That was the true measure of style. Preview equipped each Best Dressed awardee with a camera and tasked them with taking photos of their outfits every day for a month. “We made them take OOTDs before OOTD was even a term,” says Uy.

There are too many milestones from Juan’s time in Preview, but Uy is especially proud that it was the first magazine to feature transwomen, even including them on the Best Dressed list when it was still taboo. “I’ve always believed that having this platform is very important to educate more people and send out positive messages of inclusivity,” he shares.

“That Best Dressed list… we didn’t even have a word for it yet. We just called it ‘the mix.’ But we had a formula for the type of people we featured. One had to be thrifted, one high street, one indie, one high end. We were already doing inclusivity without knowing how to describe it,” says Juan.

To many, Juan’s 15 years as editor-in-chief is the only Preview they know. 

The impact of her Preview (she may recoil at this as she always asserted it was never hers) endures because she and her editors understood fashion’s role as an extension of intelligence and artistic depth. They maintained that it was not mere frippery or consumerism but a powerful expression of invention and empowerment. It was an ever-present force in art, film, music, dining, and business—something they lived, breathed, and infused into every page of the magazine.

Perhaps that’s why, when Preview folded—and rather abruptly—Uy was heartbroken. “We pushed the boundaries of how you can experience fashion. To not be given the chance to explore a better confluence of digital and print… it felt, personally as a creative, that we haven’t exhausted what we could do for the brand to make it cross over to the digital age.”  

*** (Chapter 3) ***

The Digital Era

By the late 2010s, there was no denying the shifting interest of the stylish public who preferred phones over pages. After a series of shutdowns and a reallocation of resources to digital, Summit Media announced in 2018 that it was ending its remaining print titles—Preview included.

A fresh generation of readers demanded reinvention. By this time, though, Preview already had a strong digital presence. Its online counterpart, StyleBible.PH, was launched in 2008, following the Condé Nast model where print and digital ran in parallel but separate paths. It was rebranded to Preview.PH in October 2016. 

Its founding managing editor, Isha Andaya Valles, would later replace Juan as Preview honcho. Valles started as an intern and then as an editorial assistant before becoming managing editor, executive editor, then editor-in-chief. 

“When I became EIC, I felt I became a custodian for the brand, with the responsibility to bring it forward. I felt it was my duty to help the team bring all their amazing ideas to fruition,” says Valles. “I also saw more clearly the business aspect of it all and did my best to bridge management’s goals for the brand with the creative work of the team.”

This period marked a transition. The fashion bloggers of the 2010s—once viewed by the fashion press with wariness—were becoming influencers whose pull was getting harder to ignore. Digital content meant dynamic production, and no longer could the team spend weeks or months planning editorials. Readers preferred lists, short-form, video à la minute.

Valles’ turn saw more democratization, especially on the website. She and her team dove into the real-time insights that data provided and responded accordingly. “Being able to interact directly with readers also made us see how they react to the content and the brand,” she explains.

While bespoke couture still appeared on the site, there was a more blatant emphasis on street style. Celebrities off duty, star style diaries, influencer picks, private individuals with a catchy flair. It gave off the feeling that anyone with a unique sense of style could somehow wind up on Preview’s (web) pages. 

Preview editors also began talking more about themselves—from Belle Rodolfo’s dream hair fulfillment to Janey Aniban’s  zero-waste lifestyle to Marj Ramos’  IG-worthy wedding to Yanna Lopez’s travels in heels. It broke that veneer of intimidating untouchability one normally associates with the fashion world.

Preview girls—they were just like us, always wanting to know what brands Crash Landing on You’s Yoon Se-ri (Son Ye-jin) was wearing and or the designer items Song Hye-kyo donned in Descendants of the Sun. The only difference was they had a faster way of finding out that Seo Ye-ji wore a Cartier set on the first episode of It’s Okay to Not Be Okay—and they gladly shared the information.

But this isn’t to say that Valles took a lighter route. Her real-women approach embraced genuine successes and empowerment: breast cancer survivors relearning their personal style post-op; a 65-year-old woman’s love for trendy sneakers; and a slew of articles to push forward the body positivity movement.

It was a fast-paced Preview of zeitgeist, street style, TV shows, Korean culture (lots of it), and high and low fashion. It was a Preview for the time of fast, snackable, and easy pieces. 

2020s: PrevYOU

These days, Preview is under the stewardship of Marj Ramos-Clemente, who stepped up when Valles exited in 2021. A self-described digital native who joined StyleBible.PH in 2014 as an editorial assistant, she witnessed the decline of print, including Preview magazine’s own demise.  

“Nothing about the transition (of going fully digital) was easy,” explains Clemente. The digital team produces over 10 articles daily and had to take over Preview’s tentpole executions, such as the monthly cover shoots and fashion and beauty editorials. 

“The turning point for me was realizing that I shouldn’t fixate on where we tell our stories. More than anything, it’s about what stories we tell,” she adds. “Regardless of the platform, how do we, as a brand, serve our audience through quality content that reflects Preview‘s values?”

After Juan, long-time Preview readers commented on how the brand has changed—an observation that Clemente herself doesn’t deny and, in fact, immortalized in 2022’s Preview Manifesto. The video debuted a batch of fresh-faced, social-media-savvy writers and editors who were embracing their new role in an era where consumers demanded inclusivity, diversity, and sensitivity.

At that year’s Preview Ball, Clemente announced where Preview now stood: “Fashion should be for everyone. It’s not supposed to make you feel small or make you feel like you don’t belong…In this often cruel world, fashion should be your friend. Fashion should help you celebrate your uniqueness and individuality.” In 2024, at the “Come As You Are”-themed ball, that ethos evolved to “authenticity will never go out of fashion.” 

It builds on Valles’ established approachability but takes it a step further. Clemente’s Preview shows up. No longer does it just tell the public what they need to know but engages them—challenges them, even. For instance, after the flak generated by their “How Much It Costs” series, Clemente wrote an op-ed exploring how the outrage was a form of luxury gatekeeping.  

“[Is this] information exclusive only to those who can afford it? Is everyone else not supposed to know that an Hermès Birkin is a status symbol? Should we not be privy to the fact that the celeb-favorite Loewe anagram tank top costs over P20,000? Were we supposed to be hush about the $1,100 Prada loafers that Mary Pacquiao wears to school? Are we better off kept in the dark because these things are equivalent to one household’s annual paycheck? We need to be protected from the harsh truth, is that it? So God bless our souls, and may we never find out the cost of a Louis Vuitton handbag in this lifetime.”

Clemente is well aware that many eyes are on her, especially with Preview’s 30th anniversary in 2025. Juan, Uy, and the rest of those whose stylish footwear she follows have created a venerable reputation that still lingers and invites comparisons years after they left. 

Still, she accepts the pressure pragmatically. “[They] were my heroes growing up. I don’t think anyone can live up to the legacy they’ve left behind,” she says. “I can’t follow in their footsteps because we live in a different time. I try not to give in to that pressure or even entertain the idea of attempting to replicate what Preview once was. We focus on what Preview is.” 

Some of these contemporary productions have had tongues wagging, including the viral June 2024 digital cover, which gathered 31 actors, directors, and writers who pushed for queer representation in the entertainment industry, as well as the September 2024 cover where Kathryn Bernardo serves in Renaissance floor-length tresses, the muse of her own masterpiece.  

“Yes, a lot has changed,” Clemente reiterates for The Beauty Edit. “But if we take a step back and look at the bigger picture, in a way, nothing has changed, too. We’re still Preview—we just continue to tell stories on a different platform.”

She adds: “I wouldn’t want that for my team either to feel like they’re living in the shadow of the golden age of print. These young creatives, they’re the future. The best thing I can hope for is a team that’s focused on creating its own legacy.”

***

Last year, a former editor commented on seeing the current Preview crop at a fashion show. “They were in sandals and a parang daster… And they weren’t in the front row!”  

Que horror 29 years ago, but these days, it could also be a sign of the times. 

“[To survive], you need to work with the technology and the reality of the market. What’s cool for them? It’s not about going back to what it was,” says Juan.

It also could be Preview coming in full circle. As Sison puts it, “This could be their version of anti-establishment,” a rejection of highfalutin looks in favor of logo tees and mesh Mary Janes. No longer are these journalists taking weeks to create content. They’re writing, documenting, and livestreaming all at once. And to chase new heights in fashion journalism—in Preview’s case that’s over one million unique users daily—sometimes, you need to run in flats.

PHOTOS COURTESY OF PREVIEW.PH, FORMER PREVIEW EDITORS, AND CONTRIBUTORS