One of the most important and ‘big-deal’ events I had the privilege of being invited to this year is the rare opportunity of meeting the President of the Republic of the Philippines, my beloved home country away from home. President Benigno Aquino was scheduled to come to Canada for his very first state visit, meet with Canada’s Prime Minister Stephen Harper, 20 years later after his mother, the late Former President of the Philippines Corazon Aquino, did exactly the same thing.
Next time, I’ll share with you guys the photos from the state visit when the official aircraft of the President finally landed in the tarmac, it was huge! Perhaps not as massive as the Air Force One but close enough. It definitely was a cool and surreal moment at the same time!
So with all things grand, the next big question was, what to wear to this very special state visit?
It would have been easy to opt for the Philippines’ national dress if I had one. The dress code suggested to either wear a Filipiniana (loosely – a wide range of clothing or costume from different ethnic and indigenous groups in the Philippines) or a business suit. I did not want to end up looking like a FBI agent or in this case, NBI (National Bureau of Investigation – the Philippines’ version of the US Federal Agency) agent.
There’s also the option of going with the national colours as showcased in the Filipino flag: red, blue and yellow but then I also didn’t want to look like a walking flag.
In the end, I decided to go with this. A hot pink figure-flattering dress from the limited edition Roland Mouret X Banana Republic Collection, What do you think?
Photos courtesy of: LLOYD CLEOFAS PHOTOGRAPHY. All Rights Reserved 2015.
