This is an excerpt from MEGA’s April 2025 Designer Dialogue
WHEN DID YOUR FASHION JOURNEY START ?
FED PUA: I can’t really pinpoint the date, but I think it started maybe the first time I went to a thrift store or a vintage clothing store. I think I grew up with mall culture where everyone would just buy their clothes, like Nike, H&M, fast fashion brands, and I thought it was normal. I saw clothes as just something you get, you don’t really enjoy it. You just need to wear something. And then when I saw how fun it was to thrift, I think that’s when I started realizing, oh, dressing up can actually be super fun!
JODINAND AGUILLON: Can I be a bit naive and say I feel like I’m just beginning, as far as the fashion journey? Because I don’t necessarily think that vintage is like a fashion thing, it’s more so a lifestyle thing. So it was always just kind of ingrained. But then I guess how vintage fits or complements the world of fashion is ex- citing for me, and I feel like I’m still new to that.
FP: I feel like Jodee and I don’t see ourselves as really a part of the fashion industry. I mean, the way we curate is not enough to really say we’re full-on designers, so I feel like there’s always some uncertainty if we really belong in the fashion world, or if we ‘re just resellers.
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JODINAND AGUILON full look
JA: There is that kind of point of contention where I’m hesitant to call myself curator, but it’s what people call us. And in our field, of course, curating means to care for, to collect. And yeah, we care the sh—t out of our clothes and the things that we put out there for other people to care for. So yes, I think by those standards, I guess we do qualify as curators. But there’s a difference, I guess fashion, for the sake of visuals, is one thing, but vintage has so many layers and stories that are untold that they actually have to be imagined. So I like what Fed is doing, because he’s having a lot of fun with it. It doesn’t feel over thought. I think he thinks about his stuff for sure. I don’t feel it’s too inaccessible, as far as fashion can be. And I try to keep it that way for myself as well.
FP: I super have fun with it, but I think Jodee creates this cool fantasy world around it, because the items he plays around with are not our usual things, like things that are passed down from our grandparents, things from a forgotten time. So I think it’s like when you see how he does things. It’s giving you this world that isn’t really in our world.
HOW AND WHY DID YOU DECIDE O N PURSUING VINTAGE AS A DIRECTION IN YOUR FASHION JOURNEY?
FP: I don’t think I actively decided it. I think it just kind of happened. It was really fun. But, you know, fun is nothing if it’s not applicable to real life. So we still had to make a viable business out of it. But I think it just came naturally. I think a lot of people who run stores like ours don’t dream of making a vintage store. And I think it just kind of falls on them.
JA: What he’s saying where it’s not a choice you make. It chooses you. But in all honesty, it’s if you had a choice, you wouldn’t make the choice. Because, once you know how, what’s at stake and how often do you go picking… it’s like my eyes are always open. If I see a shirt on eBay or online, versus seeing a shirt hanging like laundry on the sidewalk, I’m always looking. I think the decision to do it was for me, personally, it’s the one thing that I for many years, as far as I can remember, feels the most natural. Yes, it’s a required effort, but it’s like muscle memory.
WHAT DO YOU LOVE THE MOST IN YOUR JOURNEY AS A FASHION DESIGNER/VINTAGE CURATOR SO FAR?
FP: Honestly, recently I’ve been thinking about this, and I feel like you’d agree. I get to heal my inner child. When you grow up in a more traditional, religious, heterosexual community, there’s a lot of things that you try to not like, even if you want to like it. And I feel it’s just now that I’m finally unpacking that I have, the authority or the devices that I make myself wanted. Like, recently I’ve been listening to so much M2M, you know those kinds. I get to display my Sailor Moon figures, and they’re not hidden in the bag. So I think, as we go through our vintage journey and I guess, for other people, it just looks cooler, which is fine. Anime is cool now, and it was never cool before. K Pop is cool now as ever thought before. So I think a lot of that just helps you, just learn who you really are at the end of the day, because you finally give yourself permission to like what you really like.
JA: I guess fashion, or what we’re doing is like queering the industry as well. I look at some of the tablecloth skirts, like my first skirt as a kid was wearing a tablecloth that I used to hide, and now we actually sell it. But it is inspiring to see someone as young as Fed also participating and leading the conversations and movements around vintage because usually people in our industry are either my age or older. I’m always kind of surprised and when I see someone young. It’s just nice always to see anyone younger. And that’s what I’m seeing about the vintage community here is actually a lot of you, here, is actually a lot of young kids, younger, and that’s what sets our community apart from what I’ve seen in other parts of the world. And forFred to say something, being able to heal your inner child, being able to play with things that maybe you weren’t allowed to play with because of the world that we grew up in, and to kind of rewrite how some things mean to you, yes, and being able to enjoy them again. So deep, right?
Read more Fed and Jodiand’s conversation about thrifting and vintage finds in MEGA’s April 2025 issue now available on Readly, Magzter, Press Reader and Zinio.
Photography by EXCEL PANLAQUE. Production and Art Direction JONES PALTENG. Styling ERICA TEROL. Makeup DOROTHY MAMALIO. Hair CRISELDA VALDOZ. Models IVANNA OF LUMINARY MODELS.
