A friend once confided in me that her daughter was growing up iron-willed and headstrong, coming in too strong at times.
“And I am not going to stop her being that way,” my friend said of her daughter. “In life, a woman must be mataray to succeed.” A diva.
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A beauty expert once gifted me with the book Survival of the Prettiest, which illustrates why a woman who turns heads moves up faster. Divine.
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So who gets the guy and the promotion? The divine? The diva? Or someone who is both?
Methinks the girl with style and substance wins. If her style is divine, so be it. Contrary to the belief of the jaded, nice girls do get ahead and travel First Class on the A-380. You don’t have to be a b_ _ch to bag a Birkin.
If a woman is a diva, and has earned the right to be one, then clap, clap, clap. The world has started to admire contravidas, divas and vixens. They usually know what they want and we just have to dodge their manicured claws.
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The cover of the latest issue of PeopleAsia magazine brings together two women of style and substance who have clear-cut public personas. Gretchen Barretto is perceived to be a diva (“Ipack-up mo na si Lucy Torres mo. Ilabas mo na diyan si Gretchen Barretto,” goes a now classic line from the movie No Other Woman.) Looking breathtakingly immaculate in the latest issue of PeopleAsia magazine, Greta is divine.
“I’m not a tough cookie 24 hours a day,” she tells PeopleAsia. “But even my vulnerability, I have learned to embrace.”
Leyte Rep. Lucy Torres-Gomez looks like the Virgin Mary, speaks like an angel and conducts herself like a saint in many of her advocacies. For the PeopleAsia pictorial she agrees to look anything but virginal, angelic and saintly. She gamely agrees to look like a scheming diva, a wicked witch.
She does have a tough side, she tells us. “When I have to fight, I fight back!”
But she adds, “But I know how to fight… like a lady, that is!”
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PeopleAsia’s other Women of Style and Substance include award-winning broadcast journalist Bernadette Sembrano; San Vicente, Palawan Mayor Pie Alvarez, the youngest mayor in Philippine history; Filipino-French sculptor Olivia d’Aboville, who has exhibits in both Paris and Helsinki this month; fast rising international graphic designer Isabel Gatuslao; Air France-KLM commercial director for South China Sea Julia Godet; Harvard and UP-trained lawyer Karen Jimeno; wife, mother and entrepreneur Marissa Concepcion and Lanao del Norte Rep. Fatima Aliah Dimaporo.
Gretchen and Lucy were photographed for PeopleAsia by Doc Marlon Pecjo, a radiologist turned fashion photographer. Mau Aguasin and Rita Abiog showcased their talent in their photographs of the eight other women.
Are these 10 Women of Style and Substance divine or divas or both?
What is clear to me is that these women are comfortable in their own skin, they know what they want and how to get what they want. Their style is their substance and their substance is reflected in their style.
Now whether they are divine or divas is for us to unravel.
(PeopleAsia magazine presents its Women of Style and Substance on Sept. 25 at the Luzon Ballroom of the Sofitel Philippine Plaza hotel. A glamorous fashion show to be directed by Allure creative director Luis Espiritu and to be participated in by 20 of the country’s top designers will precede the program. The much-awaited event is presented by the Sofitel Luxury Hotels, Chevrolet and Citibank and sponsored by SM Accessories, Vito Store, Nu U Asia, Zen Zest, Glupa, The Heirloom, Meisler Watches and The Philippine STAR. )
(You may e-mail me at joanneraeramirez@yahoo.com.)