Portraits
Spotlight on Julia Barba-Baudlot: the Franco-Filipino creator of "La Filippine"
Julia Barba-Baudlot, the Filipino-French founder of La Filippine, shares her inspiring journey of establishing her brand in Singapore!
What inspired you to create La Filippine, and how does your Filipino-Franco heritage influence the brand's design?
My mother was a costume jewelry exporter for 23 years. My first job was working during the summer holidays individually packing accessories and placing “Made in the Philippines” golden square stickers on each one. I gradually learned my way through color tone combinations and seasonal collections and then eventually graduated to representing the family business in overseas trade shows. Serendipitously, it was during the Paris Bijorhca trade show that I met my future husband. As I moved to Paris, the heritage of craftsmanship and creation that had been sowed was awaiting to sprout and take shape in a new way, as uniquely mine. During my Parisian years, I credit my habitual meandering through museums and my work in a contemporary art gallery for watering and nurturing this implanted seed.
As our family was expatriated to Singapore, I once again was drawn to the art world and worked in galleries. And in 2017, I not only gave birth to our second child but the legacy from my mother bore fruit and La Filippine came to existence. My collections could only be Franco-subtle and Filipino-artisanal thanks to these two nourishing cultures.
How do your collaborations with Filipino artisans and small family businesses reflect the brand's commitment to fair trade, and how do these partnerships shape the brand’s identity?
We adhere to Fair Trade practices by way of paying our suppliers above the average production costs, sending financial aid when natural disasters or personal calamities hit, and investing in the improvement of their ateliers. We are grateful that the artisans we work with are dynamic and assertive, keeping us in the loop with their new techniques and innovations. Their self assertion and cultural pride benefit the brand immeasurably.
La Filippine is known for blending natural and polished elements in its designs. How do you achieve this balance, and what does it represent for the brand?
I have always found a handsome woman to be much more stylish than a pretty one. There is a depth and a layered quality to her bearing. A handsome woman holds a self - possessed and thoughtful presence that withstands trends. Her identity is civilized, informed yet her confidence is genuinely self - effacing. I wanted to dress this idealized icon of mine. But I also knew that the unique penmanship of the Filipino craftspeople was the only way I wished to explore this dream. In so doing, I examined this tension between the French idea of style which has been codified in our culture as the definition and the generational wealth of Filipino craftsmanship passed down by artisans to their children and their children after them. Our pieces are the outcome of this intimate inquest of mine.
What are your future plans for La Filippine?
The future I see for La Filippine is to continue our inextricable collaboration with our artisans and to strengthen the weave of reciprocity which is, in the end, the essence of the brand’s fabric. And looking beyond that, it is to grow our market reach, introduce our brand to larger audiences and build a sustainable maker - to - wearer supply chain that will not be at the cost of the health of our planet. The fashion industry has to take their share of accountability for the state of our environment. There is a ground swell of effort to steer the industry to cleaner practices. From Anna Wintour at Vogue and Condé Nast urging her devoted readers to be more mindful of their shopping habits and pressing the issue of sustainability with established and with burgeoning brands to slow fashion small businesses like La Filippine where we are thoughtful about our production wastage and are conservative in our sample quantities, you can find a tree - hugger in every level of the fashion world.
What advice would you give to aspiring entrepreneurs?
My advice comes from experience so it is uniquely offered to aspiring entrepreneurs starting with a slim budget, as I did. And it is to begin. Begin conservatively. Take the leap but be thoughtful. Start small, it allows you to be more nimble. Test your idea, be open to learning, speak to suppliers, be transparent with your requirements, collaborate and speak with peers, be candid about pitfalls. And do not be intimidated by the long bureaucratic list of to - dos as they can sometimes seem crushingly self - lengthening. Take it one task at a time. Spreading my focus across half a dozen tasks has only diluted the desired outcome, leaving me even less of a fan of multi - tasking, a unicorn state usually reserved for women to somehow achieve.
There is a grace in being courageous and this grace does not evaporate if the first try does not work out. Revel in the grace of being a student. A student of your own company, of your own brand. If you the founder do not go through intensive training yourself how can you be the knowledgeable captain of your own business?
And lastly, fashion is not always glamorous as there is a lot of effort that goes into looking effortless. So when the going gets inescapably tough, remain kind and gracious.
