ANDROID! ANDROID!

PRODUCED & STYLED BY Angela Jed Silvestre

MODEL Yeo Kaa

PHOTOGRAPHED BY Yentownkid

HAIR & MAKE-UP BY Jelly Eugenio

ASSISTED BY Mikaella Joaquin & Gio Ramon

THIS EDITORIAL WAS ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED IN CLAVEL MAGAZINE “START ‘EM YOUNG” ISSUE (2017)

 1PACK OF POLAROIDS

CONCEPT & PHOTOS BY Angela Jed Silvestre

For our Start ‘Em Young Issue, I took my Polaroid camera and asked 7 different teenagers the same question:

“What’s the most important thing to you right now?”

*ARABELLA, 17

What’s the most important thing to you right now?

My phone’s the most important thing because I have everything here, everything. Like, my contacts especially; I stay [in] contact with my friends, especially my other friend who’s going to L.A. (Los Angeles). My pictures are here…I love old, vintage photos so when I find a photo of my mom when she was young, it’s all here. And of course, Snapchat. (laughs) Memories, my poems are here, and my being [able to be] socially-aware is here, like whatever is happening in the world. I cannot live without [my phone], like most people nowadays.

Is it a problem for you to be so dependent on your phone?

Not really, because…I’m socially awkward, so when it gets too awkward, I just go on my phone and play a bunch of games coz I have a lot of games on here. Don’t need no fidget spinner. (laughs)

FAITH, 19

So Faith, what’s the most important thing to you right now?

Well… Don’t judge me, but…the bible. It’s what my friend gave me for my eighteenth birthday last year. I was Born-Again [Christian] ever since I was a kid, and then I was only recently baptized so that’s her gift to me for my eighteenth birthday. This really costs a lot. I mean, she’s my best friend and it surprised me that she gave me the bible. And she gave it to me because she thinks that this is where God speaks to me whenever I have a problem.

Why were you worried that we’re gonna judge you?

Well, because…I dunno. Sometimes when it comes to religion and stuff, when people think of us, Christian and Born-Again, like maybe, ‘Oh, they’re not open-minded.’ You know, those kinds of things. And it’s unusual for a girl to keep a bible as a valuable thing since our generation is very different. When I entered college, that’s the time when, like, my mind was really opened because not everyone has the same culture or traditions as you, or religion as you, so my college friends, they’re not really that religious compared to what I had before in high school [where] we had the same faith but in college, it’s very different. But now, I’m very open so that they can see my real self.

“What’s the most important thing to you right now?”

REBECCA, 19

What do you care about most right now?

Right now, it would be my college life since so far my entire college life has been a complete roller coaster. It’s just—things have been very complicated lately and right now, that I’m going to be transitioning back into U.P. (University of the Philippines), I’m feeling pretty nervous and very, very unsure of what’s gonna happen. So that’s the thing that I care about the most right now, because it’s really scaring the hell out of me.

Why is it scaring you?

Like, the fact that I know I’m graduating late. And for me, that’s totally fine but the fact that I feel kind of left out and I feel late compared to all my friends right now—it’s like they’re all on the right track while I’m still figuring things out and them, I look at them and they’re so sure already of what they’re gonna be, what they want to do after they graduate. And I’m still here, feeling pretty lost.

If you had complete control of the whole college thing…

I would probably not listen to my parents. Because, they want me to take this course and yeah, I do like this course but there’s another course which is truly where my heart lies, ever since, and my parents, they know about that but nonetheless they still keep pushing their first choice so if I had complete control right now, I really wouldn’t listen to them.

KIM, 19

What is it that you care about most right now?

Myself. Specifically, my drive. [My] drive on pursuing my dreams, my life goals. Coz recently, I’ve been going through something hard. Something that’s really screwing me up—I mean, you know, I’m still okay but I’m really distracted right now and I think it’s overdue that I realized I’m not on the right track anymore. Coz it’s sad, seeing myself losing that fire to get that career I want in the future.

Why, what do you want to be?

Nothing specific. I mean I want to be a risk analyst, actually. Coz I’m a business economics major so something corporate, you know, going up that corporate ladder. I want mobility in my career but I feel like the end-goal would be a senior officer, like a CEO of a company. 

So as of this interview, you’ve got a day left of being nineteen. Does that at all affect you?

No. I can be a teenager whenever I want; it’s just a label. Like, you can do anything; it doesn’t restrict you from anything.

So if you could just do what you want, what would you wanna do?

Dance. Coz I’m a dancer, that’s my passion. If I were to be a teenager my whole life, I would just dance my whole life and not work. That’s like, my ultimate dream.

“What’s the most important thing to you right now?”

*KATCH, 13

What’s the most important thing to you right now?

As of right now, well, of course besides studies—since that’s a student’s priority and that’s very important to me—right now, I’m trying to establish a good friendship with my new barkada in school. Coz last summer, I lost my best friend, we parted ways. So right now, I’m currently available as a best friend. (laughs) So right now, I’m just flying solo at school and I feel really sad about that coz of course I see her, and she’s okay, so it’s like…seeing me and I’m not that happy with my group of friends right now. 

Why not?

My barkada right now, they’re very…they’re not that open to one another. It’s like, it’s just all fun and it’s all just jokes and stuff, but when you get to the deep conversations with them, it’s very hard to get them to listen to you and to get them to—make them sincere, or for them to seem sincere with what they’re saying or how they’re listening to you coz it’s like, they got used to not opening up to each other. So we all tend to have our own walls when we’re hanging out so it’s hard to actually develop a strong friendship between them that’s more than just jokes.

How does all that make you feel?

I wouldn’t call it depressed because I don’t feel that and that’s not a joke, so, I just feel really, really, sad and sometimes I just feel numb coz like, I’m just going along with the flow. Like, I study, I hang out with them, and then I just study, I hang out with them, I do my responsibilities and it’s just like I’m living the same day over and over again so it’s just sad not having someone to really lean on so it’s like, very rare when I feel genuinely happy when I’m at school. Only with a few people, and sometimes I don’t even get to hang out with those people. It just really makes me sad that this is happening to me during my second year of high school when I thought that everything was going well and when I thought I was finally adjusting to the high school life.

What helps get you through this?

Sometimes, when I really can’t handle everything, I write poetry. I don’t think it’s even called poetry, I just keep writing like, how I feel—not as a diary, but like, just sentences in a notebook or on a piece of paper. Sometimes, if I don’t feel like doing that, I just give my all in studying. At least there, I have assurance that I can do this well; I can get a good result. I wrote a very long letter—not to my ex-best friend or anything like that—but like, I didn’t really address it to anyone, I just made the ‘you’ general. Like, I wrote there that these things happen and I should stop worrying too much because I’m still young and I have an entire life ahead of me, and of course, I wrote there that I will always have my faults and other people will always have their faults, and that’s a normal thing. And I also addressed to ‘you’ that one day, everything will be okay and that we shouldn’t stress about it too much. Something like that.

THIS STORY WAS ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED IN CLAVEL MAGAZINE “START ‘EM YOUNG” ISSUE (2017)

“WEAR WHAT” Lookbook

PRODUCED & STYLED BY Angela Jed Silvestre

MODELS Liz Villaflor, Galan Maigue, Carla Crespo

PHOTOGRAPHED BY Mikaella Joaquin & Gio Ramon

MAKE-UP BY Bea Dellera

ASSISTED BY Ynna Silvestre

THIS EDITORIAL WAS ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED IN CLAVEL MAGAZINE “START ‘EM YOUNG” ISSUE (2017)