the mexican-philippine connection: dia de los muertos and UNDAS

 

mini dress, zalora philippines (old), probably not so clear in the photos but it's there underneath the cardigan; lace cardigan, vintage; necklaces, a mix of aizilim cdeo and forever21; rings, a mix of aizilim, bagel girl via sm downtown premier cdeo, forever21; heels, primadonna via zalora philippines (old); tights, random department store find (gaisano, I think, the 50 Php ish ones probably meant for one-time wear); devil horn headband (unseen here but in later photos, might be seen more), national bookstore (old); skull tealight/candle holder, daiso cdeo

A closer, better lighted look at tonight's outfit

I never dressed up as anything or anyone the 31st of October, back a few days ago or so but I had to, come November 2, Philippines' time. Here, it's still what we call UNDAS (November 1-All Saints' Day and November 2-All Souls' Day). Googling it earlier tonight, I'm surprised to find all of October 31 to November 2 in Mexico is actually Dia de Muertos or Dia de los Muertos which is basically almost what UNDAS here is. To westerners, it's the Halloween weekend so most of the time, I just refer to it as the Halloween weekend since such holidays continue 'til the 2nd of November anyway. It's the short 2-3 days we actually remember the dead here and yes, abroad, including in Mexico. I've always read from others how similar some Philippine holidays are to Mexico and customs and traditions and the likes but I never figured out 'til now how close it is until I googled dia de los muertos and UNDAS tonight. Just one thing about this though, I wish I'm better at makeup for costuming because I really dig the makeup for this Mexican occasion I often see when I google pictures of them like this one here from pinterest:

Hopefully I can one day learn this and get the hang of it because with the pandemic, I feel like all my creative energies have really dried up that even this halloween weekend shoot came out quite dry and uninspired (to me, anyway, I don't really know much how it is with the rest of you) even when I feel like I've put enough effort to it.

I was in Jasaan with the family overnight from Sunday 'til morning of Monday this week so I never got to work on a Halloween shoot until tonight. What I did there is your typical way Filipinas like me sort of celebrate the occasion growing up: watched Tumbok (a Filipino horror film) on TV5; Kapuso Mo, Jessica Soho's Halloween special on GMA; and then waited for Yang Yoseob's set on MCountdown until 12 midnight aired also on TV5. I would have done this Halloweeny shoot in Jasaan but I didn't have a lot of my creepy ish, cool stuff with me and it was more a time to spend with family---three to four generations of it from my grandparents to my parents to my younger brother and cousin---so yeah, quite a busy overnight trip one with chores and stuff at my grandparents' before I got to lie on the couch and chill to these things on tv I mentioned I watched 'til 12-ish midnight. For some reason, I don't sleep well there so I only ever got 2-3 hours of sleep until 7:30 Monday morning.

I'm not entirely sure what I'm aiming for, for this Halloween shoot in terms of costume. LOL. Just your regular gothic, devil girl, I guess. I've been watching some horror films here and some fantasy new and old ones too but nothing has inspired me to dress up as anyone...yet...really. We'll see next Halloween, 2022 Halloween. Hopefully something good in mind comes up where this goes. Again, I just really feel uninspired lately. It's definitely the pandemic effect. It is still going on 'til now despite how there're more people out now in malls and such. (Philippines NEEDS more public spaces because malls aren't really good ones to be in when we have a pandemic still going on. Ugh. I just count myself lucky I'm in the Mindanao island so we have beaches and the likes when we need to be out and not in the super crowded malls. Heh.) Either way, watch me dress up as a unicorn maybe in 2022 as I'm soooo...this close to getting a unicorn headband or something like it, actually. 

Going back to the subject of Mexico, I've been having the urge to check on some telenovelas as of late. I'm not entirely sure why. I guess it has to do with TV5 re-airing Thalia's Maria La Del Barrio dubbed in Filipino/Tagalog. We did get a lot of her telenovela here in our local tv networks back in the day so I saw Thalia's shows a lot growing up. A lot of Philippine tv dramas/shows are actually telenovela-ish if that ever says anything about how similar our country is and its practices, including tv contents, to Mexico. I'm currently thinking about getting into Reina de Corazones. Or...is there any other you can suggest I get into? I'm not too into these things because I normally dislike how convoluted the story gets plus long *ss episodes of a telenovela but, yeah, I guess I now have better, newfound patience for telenovelas if I'm currently craving to watch them/get into them after a long while now. I'll see about which telenovela I can preoccupy myself with one of these days. Heh.