Some fashion loyalties are easy to claim in an interview. FELIP’s Maison Margiela one has receipts.
Two years before he ever set foot inside the brand’s storefront, FELIP was already naming it out loud — unprompted, on a street corner in Japan, with no styling team and no brand deal in sight. This week, that same brand invited him to the opening of its first local storefront in the Philippines. It’s the kind of before-and-after that says more about a person’s taste than any single red-carpet fit could.
FELIP at the MM6 Maison Margiela opening in Makati.
MM6 Maison Margiela
- Ground Floor, Greenbelt 2, Makati, Philippines
He Said It First, in Japan
Rewind to 2024, during FELIP’s promo run in Japan for his debut album 7sins — the same trip that included his first solo concert on an international stage. Somewhere in between the scheduled press stops, a street corner caught him in a completely unscripted moment. No junket, no fashion segment on the itinerary. Just a passerby with a camera, catching him mid-walk for a quick, casual interview aimed at a Japanese audience.
Asked what he was wearing, FELIP pointed to his fit that day: full Balenciaga streetwear, shoes and bag included, with a few pieces mixed in that fans had given him. He introduced himself simply — a music artist from the Philippines — before the interviewer asked the natural follow-up: what other brands does he like?
His answer covered a lot of ground, but Maison Margiela was one of the names he volunteered, alongside Chrome Hearts and Maison Mihara Yasuhiro. True to how he talks about fashion elsewhere, he didn’t stop at luxury names — his taste runs from established houses to smaller, lesser-known labels, as long as the piece itself is a genuine craft, something made with intention. It was a small aside in a much longer interview (the interviewer was equally taken with his red hair, asking him to pull his hoodie down for a full look — the verdict: cool). But it’s the kind of offhand detail that’s easy to miss in the moment and hard to ignore two years later.
He Proved It in Manila
Maison Margiela recently opened its first local storefront in the Philippines, and FELIP was among the fashion figures invited to the event, alongside other names in the local fashion scene. The moment was captured and shared by VMAN Southeast Asia on Instagram.
For the occasion, FELIP wore the Maison Margiela 5 Zip Leather Jacket, layered over an MM6 Maison Margiela overdyed handwritten print t-shirt in white. It’s a pairing that reads exactly like his solo-era wardrobe: heavy leather silhouette softened by a distressed, hand-marked graphic tee underneath. Rockstar aura, unmistakably his.
It’s a fitting brand for him to be seen in, and not just because he was invited. Margiela’s whole design language — deconstruction, reinterpretation, pieces with a story behind the stitching rather than just a label on it — sits comfortably next to an artist who treats his own catalog the same way: taking something familiar and cutting it apart to make it his.
The Consistency Is the Story
What makes this worth writing about isn’t the invite alone. Brand invites happen. What’s rarer is a two-year gap between a name being casually dropped in an unscripted interview and that same name showing up as an actual, deliberate part of someone’s wardrobe at an official event. FELIP wasn’t performing brand loyalty for an audience in Japan — there was no audience expecting it, no reason to say it beyond it being true. Two years on, Manila got the receipts.
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