Eunica Escalante |
Part of this series was to highlight our actual customers and community doing cool things within their local communities & pushing limits within their craft. But shopping with us isn't required for us to recognize someone that is doing something cool.
I never actually met Eunica IRL prior to the shoot. In natural (or unnatural) modern day fashion, we were aware of each other via social. Hawai'i is pretty small comparative to cities like NYC so with a small local creative community, names gets passed around & you can easily be aware of what's happening in the "scene." I've always laid low here and even more so since I've moving back. Maybe it's my maiden last name... bad joke ;) But highlighting those more behind the scenes was something I wanted to do through this series.
As a journalist and digital editor at Flux Hawai'i, I felt like Eunica had a pulse of a lot happening on the island yet I didn't see her necessarily front and center of it all. (I love that...) I particularly respected her work that highlighted her Filipino culture which I obviously identified with considering I have a lot of family back in the Philippines that I don't get to see often... one being my dad. It was nice to see Filipino fashion highlighted.
Eunica had a sweet and gentle energy to her. At the same time her expression through her own personal style was hard to overlook. We actually styled her in two different looks with our newest TCP design, our elastic waist short shorts! Designed to embrace the comfort & function needed in Hawai'i yet with the different vintage textiles we use, we hope there is still a sense of uniqueness and even history in each pair. Easy to pair with a basic like our deadstock Robert P. Miller tees or Stan Ray Jacket... We also added our city bag to one look and our bucket hat (coming back soon!) to the other... she was set to take on any local adventure and story. ;)
Below is a short clip of Eunica's take on self-exploration and the importance of reflection. You can also find a lot of her work here.
Thank you Eunica for being apart of this series & I look forward to getting to know you better beyond your amazing written bits of culture we all need.
- Natasha ❤️
Photography by Brandyn Liu