September Vogue features Filipina’s jewelry designs

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September Vogue features Filipina’s jewelry designs
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PARIS - based Rose Anne Cu-unjieng de Pampelonne is set to be the next big Philippine fashion star, if she isn’t one already.

Her bejeweled accessories or “cuddly ornamentation” as she likes to call them, were recently featured in In Style (modeled by pop superstar Rihanna) and Elle. This month, they get prominent exposure in Vogue (Rachel Weisz on the cover) in the magazine’s jewelry report.

It was also in that same magazine that she was featured about two years ago as one of Paris’ “secret addresses” for her embellished clothing designs, which are made in Nepal. She is again cast in the spotlight as her accessories are making a big dent in the creative and crowded world of international fashion.

Last June, I was in Paris to interview and photograph this design powerhouse for this newspaper and for the cover of the Philippine Tatler which comes out this October. We did her shoot and interview at one of the homes she designed, a gorgeous and tony two-story apartment with a breathtaking view of the Eiffel Tower.

I have known Rose Anne for quite some time and whenever I go to the City of Light, we manage to make time for catching up. She is always very accommodating and kind-hearted. She loves to entertain and hobnob with the city’s ultra-chic crowd.

The last time I was there, the wife of Louis Vuitton chair and chief executive Yves Carcelle, Rebecca, was giving Rose Anne a birthday party. Invited were some Filipinas like the very lovely Yvette Lhuillier-Warnod (Monique’s beautiful sister and a carbon copy of her mom Amparito) and Ria Agousti whose furniture and accessories are sold in Barney’s as well as in Paris.

Rose Anne’s passion for creativity and sense of style has always been innate. She has taken lessons in painting in Florence and design in Paris. A good friend prodded her to open an interior design company upon seeing her work on the apartment she was then living in.

Today, she is an accomplished interior designer with a coveted clientele all over the world. Her home has been featured in countless magazines and this column reported the coverage of her own home in Elle Décor (US) last April.

She also had a showroom in Manila called Artemis (now owned by Baby Girl Fricke) and her partners include her sister Libet Virata, Conrad Onglao, Anton Mendoza and Doris Ho.

Her jump to fashion, and now jewelry, has progressed naturally. She says it all started with embroidery that did not work on the clothes she designed. She kept them and made them into necklaces.

When asked how growing up in the Philippines has influenced her work, she answered, “What I appreciate about having been born in the Philippines is the Filipino sense of flexibility and diplomacy (good manners over brutal frankness) as they help cushion the rough bumps along the way.”

Prompted further why she went into accessories/jewelry design after being an interior and fashion designer, she said, “I know that it is mad to have added another profession albeit one which does complement the other; but it just happened!”

So how does she put it altogether—being an interior, fashion, jewelry designer and a wife and mother.

Rose Anne has been married for 20 years to the investment banker, Baron Bruno de Pampelonne; they live together with their three handsome sons Dominic, Ludovic and Alexis. (Incidentally her oldest son Dominic photographed her for the Tatler cover).

She says, “I’m so busy that it would be a great luxury to have more time. Problem is, even when I’m tired, I don’t want to stop, because I love what I’m doing... When I feel I’m beginning to be overwhelmed, I go home.”

Rose Anne adds, “I am looking forward to spending more time with my family; they are really my most incredible inner circle. Hopefully more years of creating and, wistfully, finally learning how to delegate in the good old Filipino way.”

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