‘My lola Marina was like her vintage clothes’

(After the first launch last December, ‘Love, Marina’ will have another launch on March 3, 2026, at Tesoro’s on Arnaiz Ave., Makati.)

Marina Antonio, a defining designer of the 20th century, dressed women in Filipiniana and soft, romantic ballgown silhouettes distinguished by delicate embroidery, intricate beadwork, and a deep respect for the natural curves of the female form. Her world—fashion, home, and sensibility—receives a high-gloss yet intimate treatment in a new monograph, Love, Marina, by her granddaughter, Vicky Veloso-Barrera, herself a designer and a skilled culinarian.

Drawing from family archives, period clippings, documents from the US Library of Congress, and photographs sourced from former clients, Barrera constructs a richly layered narrative that situates Marina firmly within her milieu. Clarifying both the scope of Marina’s work and the life that shaped it, the author insists on seeing her as a whole: the woman, the couturiere, and the homemaker.

Substantive and carefully assembled, the meticulously researched volume is filled with images of society brides, indigenous flora, and comforting Filipino dishes. It also reveals how Marina’s flourishing garden and accomplished cooking set her apart from her peers, extending her creative expression beyond the atelier and into the rhythms of daily life.

When a client arrived at Marina Antonio’s house in Pasay City, she was not there simply for a fitting. The visit was a full experience, a moment of hospitality and beauty. Marina served her famous adobo made with pork chops instead of cubes, finished with a sprinkle of parsley to please the eye as much as the palate. For merienda, she offered candied sweet potato, transformed into a confection that tasted like marron glacé. Lunch followed with sweet cured milkfish, mung bean soup, and homemade halo-halo, all enjoyed in the tropical mid-century modern home designed by her husband, National Artist for Architecture Pablo Antonio, surrounded by a garden thick with endemic blooms.

During a shoot for the book, Barrera noticed a flash of pink lining peeking from Marina’s vintage gowns. Lifting the top layer of organza, trimmed with lace and her signature hand-rolled roses, she uncovered yet another layer beneath: sheer tulle scattered with sparkling sequins.

“Suddenly, I felt her presence beside me once more, as if she was explaining that putting the layer of sequins underneath gave the long ensemble a more subtle sparkle,” writes Barrera, “My lola Marina was like her vintage clothes, bearing secrets and the power to make her presence felt suddenly, and her moments with us remembered.”

With her literary background, Barrera often turns to imagery when writing about her family and her grandmother. She describes her grandfather Pablo as the rock that anchored them, while Marina was the vine that entwined family life. He helped them take root; she helped them spread their leaves and tendrils. Together, they allowed the family to bloom, and their children went on to pursue careers in the arts and design.

Barrera also traces the generations of designers who followed Marina: her mother, Malu Antonio Veloso; herself and Letlet Veloso, who retained Marina’s feminine style. Her daughter, Hannah Barrera, has since moved toward couture, carrying the family legacy in a new direction.

She compares the family talent to the warp and weft of a woven cloth—the warp as the vertical threads, the weft as the horizontal. “In the designing clan that Marina Antonio was raised in, the warp is the gene, the talent.”

Marina del Rosario Reyes was born in Binondo, Manila, on September 19, 1910. Her father, Francisco Reyes, left the family and began another life in Palawan, leaving Marina, her siblings and her mother, Adriana del Rosario, to fend for themselves. Adriana taught her daughter the skills that would later define her artistry—sewing, cooking, and the resourcefulness of a woman who could turn little into something beautiful. When they shopped for fabric or food, Adriana would repeat the old Spanish slogan “bueno, bonito, barato,” a reminder that good taste should be affordable. That same instinct later showed in Marina’s cooking, where simple ingredients became memorable dishes, and in her design work, where costly scraps were reborn as delicate flowers on gowns.

When they shopped for fabric or food, Marina’s mother Adriana would repeat the old Spanish slogan ‘bueno, bonito, barato,’ a reminder that good taste should be affordable

In 1930, Marina and her sisters opened a dressmaking shop along Taft Avenue, then one of Manila’s most fashionable streets. Their work was admired for its classic Filipiniana style, and Marina soon became known for the brides who came to her seeking gowns that seemed to bloom from the body itself.

Her first marriage in the 1930s ended abruptly when her husband—unnamed in the book—left, saying she could not give him children. Marina turned her grief into creation, pouring herself into dressmaking and the discipline of home arts. It was through a client, Cecilia Araneta Yulo, and her husband, Speaker Jose Yulo, that Marina met Pablo Antonio, the architect they believed could be her match. Both shared an eye for beauty, and they married in 1938.

Together they built a family of six children. Malu, their daughter, became known for her fashion sense and her baking. Sons Pablo Jr., Chito, and Ramon followed their father into architecture, with Ramon recently celebrating 50 years in the field. Tonyvic became an engineer, and Pancho, a visual artist—each one a different expression of the same creative bloodline.

Over the decades, Marina dressed affluent women and expatriates who sought her elegant Filipiniana and bridal gowns. Her clients included figures who moved between Manila’s social life and the wider currents of history: Clare Boothe Luce, the American writer and diplomat who visited the Philippines as part of the postwar diplomatic and cultural establishment, and Jean MacArthur, the wife of General Douglas MacArthur, who lived in Manila before and after the war. Their patronage underscored how Marina’s work belonged not only to a local tradition but also to a world shaped by politics and the rippling effects of independence.

Barrera does not shy away from the tensions that shaped Marina’s life. She writes candidly about the quarrels between her grandparents over work habits and how Marina, ever dutiful, set aside her career for the sake of family. After Pablo’s death at 74 in 1975, Marina returned to her work with renewed resolve. She lived to be 96, her life spanning nearly a century of shifting styles and social orders. She passed away in 2006.

In the book’s most detailed passages, Barrera breaks down Marina’s signature style, weaving in anecdotes about how she and her sister Letlet studied their grandmother’s construction techniques. These were not merely sewing details; they were the elements that defined a sleeve, shaped a silhouette, and gave a skirt its volume, altering the way a woman appeared in the mirror. The book notes that Marina was among those who used the cañamazo, the stiff underlayer that gives terno sleeves their structured form.

Barrera highlights Marina’s signature flourishes such as the hand-painted floral motifs, hand-rolled roses and sampaguitas in satin, and structured beadwork that gave each gown its sculpted elegance. Consistent with Marina’s frou-frou sensibility, Barrera describes the brides she dressed with a lyrical sweep: “From such gossamer hopes and fleeting wishes, giddy joy and bubbling excitement did Marina spin frothy concoctions of fine jusi and organdy, fine piña and silk, corded laces or Chantilly pearls and beads, embroidery and painting roses and sampaguita.”

An entire section of the book is devoted to these brides, including Nini Quezon Avanceña, Alice Paez Lorenzo, Chita Zaldarriaga, Rica Lorenzo, Lisa Ongpin Periquet, Anna Crisostomo Sobrepeña, and her sister, Guia Crisostomo Tan.

The chapter on the garden catalogs the ornamental plants that flourished in Marina’s yard, but it also carries a wartime thread. Barrera recounts how a Japanese gardener, later revealed as a cover for an army officer, helped maintain the landscape. One day he warned the Antonios to leave Pasay before the Japanese occupied Manila. Heeding his advice, they moved to Sta. Ana.

Food lovers will find a warm, intimate chapter devoted to Marina’s recipes, each one carrying a story. A simple stir-fry of bean sprouts with tofu and cilantro became a Tuesday ritual for the friends who gathered for lunch at the Antonio home. The sinigang or sour soup came from Marina’s sister and business partner, Adelina. The recipe follows the traditional way of making it: fresh tamarind is soaked in hot water, then mashed to release its juice, while the broth is enriched with the water used to wash rice. The result is a tangy, comforting soup that tastes of home and patience.

The National Artist’s favorite was salted dried milkfish, served with pan-roasted tomatoes and a glass of wine, followed by his preferred dessert. True to her frugal instincts, Marina turned leftovers into bread pudding, sometimes even adding stray bits of meat that had accidentally mixed with the dried fruit.

The book closes by showing how Marina cared for her creations, from consultations over lunch or merienda to the careful preservation of gowns as mementos of social history.

‘Love, Marina,’ published by Far Eastern University, will have another launch on March 3, 2026, at Tesoro’s, Arnaiz Ave., Makati.