Pauline Suaco-Juan: A Preview of style

MANILA, Philippines - Despite her slender frame and delicate features, Pauline Suaco-Juan has a commanding presence. As editor-in-chief of Preview, she has the enviable task of leading a veritable manual of style. But when asked how she feels about being a “tastemaker,” she thinks long and hard about her answer.

“That’s tricky,” she says, hesitating a bit. “If you say ‘yeah,’ it’s like you take yourself soooo seriously, which is something that I don’t really do.” Laughing, she shares how difficult it is to get her son to take her fashion advice. “He tells me, ‘Mom, who are you ba to tell me what’s baduy’?”

Pauline’s fashion foray was accidental. Originally a broadcaster with Probe Productions, she entered a “transition phase” in her career, becoming Preview’s fashion assistant — pulling out clothes, booking models and ordering lunch. She thought it was a six-month stint. Within a tumultuous year of personnel changes at the magazine, she found herself editor-in-chief.

Her background with TV prepared her for the language of magazines and adeptly communicating with both words and pictures. “I was lucky in a sense that my move (up the ladder) was very fast,” she says. “But then the question was: ‘How do we go from here’?”

“When we started, there were no templates for us to follow,” she says. “We’ve had to learn on the job, figure out who we are, what we stand for, our aesthetics.” One of her first tasks was to write the Preview Brand Bible. “The heart of Preview is that it’s very Pinoy. We champion Pinoy talent — not just the people you feature, like writers, photographers and models, but also the one behind the scenes. We work with the best team.” Thanks to a soundly articulated brand and a talented team, Preview — 10 years after Pauline took over — has perfected its template.

Deciding what goes into the magazine is a constant balancing act. Pauline strives to keep content fresh yet appealing to loyal readers, interesting to both fashion newbies and the fashion savvy, and diverse yet still unified under the Preview brand. It’s what she calls “gatekeeping.”

“In some ways, being an editor today is harder,” she says. “Before, there was a dearth of information so you had to go out there, find it and give it to your reader. Today, there’s so much information that anybody can access, so you need to filter precisely which ones your readers will want to see. You need to be the sharper editor and find the stories behind the trends.”

With www.stylebible.ph, the online extension of the Preview brand, and plans to benefit students and young designers with expensive resources, she admits to putting her heart and soul into her work. “But there’s more to me than being the editor-in-chief,” she says. “There’s being a wife and a mom. The kids, by the way, really bring me down to earth. My job is just one of so many roles I can play.”

Photography by Jo Ann Bitagcol • Styling by Corine Alegre • Makeup by Pia Reyes for Lancome • Hairstyling by John Valle for Loreal Professionel