37: Caroline Mangosing on VINTA Gallery and helping Filipinos understand our culture and identity

 
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Hi everybody, and thank you for listening to episode 37 of the Learn With Lels podcast.

On this episode, I spoke with Caroline Mangosing, who is the founder, CEO, and creative director of VINTA Gallery, a clothing company that creates modern Filipino clothes that are designed in Toronto and created in Manila. If you’ve never seen VINTA Gallery’s clothes, especially if you are Filipino, you need to check them out. They are traditional and modern, and beautiful and unlike anything I’ve ever seen before.  

In our conversation, Caroline and I talked about:

  • how VINTA Gallery came to be;

  • the whole process of creating VINTA’s sustainable and ethically-made garments;

  • how Caroline felt ashamed to be a Filipina growing up, and how that’s impacted her business and career; and

  • a bit about Filipino culture, shame, and history.

Heading into this conversation, I was expecting to talk about business and clothes. But Caroline’s passion for Filipino culture and getting Filipinos to understand ourselves really shined through. And so now I find myself both eyeing VINTA Gallery’s pieces and reading about colonization in the Philippines in an effort to learn about myself.

Caroline is just so cool, and whether you’re a fashion lover, a Filipino, an entrepreneur, or even none of the above, I hope you enjoy and find some value in this conversation.  

If you like this podcast, please subscribe wherever you listen, and follow me on social for more content (@LearnWithLels on Instagram and @KaitlinJingco on LinkedIn and Twitter).

Kaitlin JingcoComment