I fell in love with clothing as a child, enticed by my mother’s collection of kitten heels and the outfits she and my titas wore to weekly Filipino soirées in suburban New Jersey. The ease and spirit with which they carried themselves, effortlessly line-dancing to the Cha Cha or electric slide on a basement parquet floor, is something I have sought to emulate.

My appreciation for vintage originated in college, when I worked at a local Goodwill to help cover the cost of my expenses. I spent my shifts sifting through donated clothing, most of which was bound to be tagged for the floor and given a second chance. (I’m a sentimental romanticist at heart, and the thought of a second chance, even for the inanimate, pulls deeply at my heartstrings.) Finding a gem in a pile of discarded clothing was kismet; and inevitably, I developed a fascination and profound reverence for clothing that had survived or been preserved through years of thoughtless or thoughtful and considered storage and wear.

I have been collecting vintage clothing for a decade now, and each garment I offer through Apalit has been carefully hand-selected, or has had its own stint in my closet. “Apalit” is the name of the town in the Philippines where my mother is from; And through my curation, I hope to capture the ethos of my mother and the women in my family poetically, and with unencumbered elegance, cutting up the dance floor.