Milka: From corporate to creative

MANILA, Philippines - Due to her holistic approach of the deconstruction and resurrection of the hidden beauty of the Banana Plant, Milka Quin Redoble, an entrepreneur from Pasig City won the third season of Project Runway Philippines.

After several successful years in banking, she quit the job and switched to something more creative — fashion. She got herself into Slim’s Fashion and Art School and has never stopped designing since. Joining Project Runway Philippines Season 3, she never expected to walk away with the top prize.

While it was a competition, the Project Runway experience was really fun, according to Milka. “The experience was really, generally fun for me. What I cherish the most in the experience is not winning it, but in winning friends, winning a family. Amor and Cheetah, and all my friends, we talked about this. We say that we are all winners because we found each other and we get to keep the friendship,” she said. “And for me, I’m a mom. And this is my first time to be exposed to all of this. It was a blessing for me because I met a lot of people from this business, I learned a lot from Tweetie (de Leon-Gonzales), Apples (Aberin) and Rajo (Laurel) about the business side and things like that, and I learned a lot from Joji (Lloren) as well, you know, about technique. It was an experience of a lifetime.”

Asked how she was feeling during the final runway, she said, “What made me cry and what was really memorable about that was when I got to see my first dress go down the runway, I know I didn’t see it upfront but I saw the video when we were watching with Joji. And I said, ‘Oh my gosh, this is the first dress and it’s walking down the runway!’ I love it! And they were all walking already and then the most memorable moment, was when I was walking, when my models were all walking before me… Then I saw them all lined up and all the dresses were like, sabi ko, ‘Wow, I made all these. Wow.’ It was exciting.”

Asked for a reaction to Leslie Mobo’s comments on her collection, she said, “When we were there, I really didn’t realize how outspoken he was about my collection because we didn’t really hear what he had to say in the deliberations. When I watched it, I was really surprised and glad that he did like my collection. Partly because maybe I was really glad that he was exposed to the international scene. That he appreciated what I made.”

Milka added, “Even the Paris comment, when he told me, ‘You should really go to Paris and make stuff like that,’ I was surprised and parang, ‘Why are you telling me that?’ Even Apples was surprised. ‘That was quite a statement,’ Apples said. I was surprised that he was telling me that outright. Parang kahit na hindi ako nanalo dun, winner pa rin ako eh, nung sinabi niya yun, feeling ko since I won his approval, feeling ko I won na rin, kahit hindi ako manalo at that time. It was amazing.”