How a cheese sauce stain started Heart’s passion for painting Hermes Birkin bags
Beautiful, one of a kind, and eye-catching — these could very well describe the stunning Heart Evangelista, one of the most beautiful faces to ever grace local showbiz, but today, we are captivated by Love Marie’s works of art. These are not her usual oil on canvass paintings which she gave us a taste of in an exhibit in 2014 (sold out in an hour!), and again to an international market in Singapore in 2015 (again, sold out).
Today, we gaze upon a customized, hand-painted collection of Hermes Birkin bags, lovingly painted on by Love Marie Ongpauco-Escudero. The bags’ designs are as varied as the ladies who carry them. One is in muted tones with neutral colors, graceful swirls, and an elegant woman looking away. Another is more colorful with vivid hues and lush foliage. Both belong to dear friends, Love Marie’s lucky first customers on her latest foray as an artist. Another is a leather and canvas Birkin, similar to Kim Kardashian’s Hermes Kelly (painted on by her daughter, North). This is special as this is Love’s own bag and the second bag she has ever painted on. It shows a girl with her back turned, she’s looking forward, with raindrops hovering over her shoulder, but in the midst of the rain is a colorful series of concentric circles, dotted with graphic shapes, and beside it a steady stream of muted yellows and browns. She is sheltered under a bright red umbrella but it seems like she doesn’t really need it anymore. She’s moving out into the rain, diving into the dizzying spirals, and the gentle wave of warmth and sunshine.
Love Marie, the artist
“I’ve always been painting, even as a little girl I was painting on the doors and walls of our house,” shares Love Marie Ongpauco-Escudero, as usual, a vision in her all-white ruffled jumpsuit, beige peep-toe heels and sleek black bob. “I even took lessons and I remember my teacher telling me that I had my own style of painting already. He didn’t want to interfere with that and instead just let me go with my own style.” And indeed, this early on in her career as an artist, you can already spot her works from afar. Her recent works have had the common theme of flora, fauna, and women, visually stirring emotions similar to those of the artist Gustav Klimt. Love Marie’s women are complex yet straightforward, warm yet distant, and always bathed in a swirl of colors and shapes. They look at you and look away, sometimes whispering secrets into each other’s ear. The woman that the public always thought of as a sheltered, giddy young artista, and a self-described shy girl, is stepping out with her heart on her sleeve and her art paving the way for the artist, Love Marie.
Love Marie, the bag painter
Why Hermes? “I’m a bag collector and I think this was influenced by my mom kasi she collected Hermes bags even before pa. I like how their bags are not just beautiful but also good investments,” and true enough, financial analysts have claimed that the Hermes Birkin has steadily grown in value through the years, proving to even be more stable than gold and stocks! Love Marie has chosen to celebrate the timelessness and unique beauty of not just the bags, but also the ladies that carry them. Her first foray into painting an Hermes happened both out of necessity and inspiration. “I was eating cheese fries when I noticed that some of the cheese sauce had dropped onto the base of my yellow Birkin. The oil was spreading out and the stain was getting bigger no matter what I did. I remembered how Kim Kardashian had a painted bag, so I tried to fix the stain by painting over it,” Love shares. “I was really nervous doing it because the moment the paint touched the leather, the paint started to spread! This was the first time I ever painted on leather and such a small area, too. Thankfully, I’ve now found the best acrylic paint to use for Hermes leather bags.” The paint she uses is meant to be used on leather so future customers can breathe easy knowing that a few raindrops won’t cause the paintings to fade or crack. After seeing her hand-painted creation, her next customers were her good friends. We ask her if they have any input on what designs they want for their bags. “They give me freedom as an artist on what I would like to paint on their bags. Sometimes I try to think of the personality of the bag owner and also how they plan to use the bag. The flowers and the birds, I place them on bags that I think will be more for everyday use, just like a floral dress that has a casual and laid back feel to it. The women paintings, I reserve for more special occasion bags,” and looking at them, you see why they are special to her heart.
“I get very nervous whenever I have to paint a bag. I get nightmares! It’s a lot of pressure but also a big honor to be trusted to do this.” And how is the value of these precious bags affected by her painting on them? “Hermes bags are the only bags that auction houses accept. Given that it’s already valuable to begin with, making it into an even special one of-a-kind piece by painting on it can only increase its value. As far as I know, as long as the bags are not punctured, they will retain their value.” But how about those that want to have a hand-painted bag by Love Marie but do not have the money for an Hermes? “I will also be coming out soon with a line of painted clutch bags. A few pieces will be shown during the exhibit.”
Love Marie Ongpauco-Escudero renders Hermés Birkins with her paintings for her “Carry Your HeArt” exhibit. Photos by JOEY VIDUYA
Stepping out
“I’d like to travel more, see the world, before I have a baby,” she candidly shares. “Before getting married, I was never really able to travel because of work and I was always with my parents. I only had two weeks in a year to have a vacation!” Love shares. “They say that once you get married then you’ll be held back, that everything stops. It’s been the opposite for me. My husband pushes me. He asks me: What are your plans for next year? What do you want to do?” He believes in me. I‘ve never been more free,” and she says this not with the giddiness of a newlywed but with the determined calm of someone who is exactly where she wants to be. “There are some themes that I can’t repeat. There are things that I used to paint about that I will not do again. They were reflections of the stage of my life. Things never look the same, you know? Like the sunflowers in Paris, you go around and they look different than the other sunflowers in Europe, the place where the sun is positioned, the way the flowers turn to face the sun and the yellow of their petals. It’s never the same flower.”
Jane Birkin and her anti-snobbish bag
This trend of customizing a bag with a five-year waiting list is still quite unbelievable for most people. Recently made popular by celebrities Kim Kardashian (so far, we know of two painted Hermes bags, one by her daughter North, and another by New York based artist, George Condo), Lady Gaga (slashed a black one multiple times and wrote with a black marker on a white Birkin). The boldest move so far has been that of Clint Eastwood’s daughter, Francesca, and her then boyfriend, artist-photorapher, Tyler Shield. Together, they cut into a red croc Birkin (worth $100,000) with a chainsaw, they also poured gas on it then proceeded to burn it – claiming that destruction was a beautiful form of freedom. Not surprisingly, the very first one to customize an Hermes Birkin was the woman who inspired it – British actor and activist, Jane Birkin. Jane famously put protest stickers, beads, and other small trinkets on her bags, using them as a medium to express her ideas and at the same time a way to downplay the “snobbish” bag she’s a little bit reluctant to have been named after her. She has auctioned off her first three bags for charity.
* * *
Carry Your HeArt will run from Sept. 3 to 9 at the Volkswagen Showroom in Bonifacio Global City. For more information, visit www.lovemarieescudero.com
