Rosenthal Tee

We talked to the bridal designer on drawing inspiration from her own cultural DNA and building lasting friendships with her clients.

When Rosenthal Tee decided to pursue fashion design, she knew failure wasn’t an option. “I had to be really ambitious for myself,” the designer tells me over Zoom. “I didn’t want to be the first person in my family to do anything in the arts and suck at it. May pagka A-type!” It paid off. Today, Tee is one of the most sought-after bridal designers in the Philippines. Not to mention, she’s already made waves internationally after two back-to-back NYFW showcases.

It was actually a school project in college (she was a Management Economics major at Ateneo de Manila University) that spurred the desire to pursue a more creative track. “Serendipitously, my cousin was moving to London after graduation,” she says. “I didn’t know if I was going to be allowed, but I said I’d love to go and take a few short courses.” Those “short courses’’ morphed into a two-year master’s degree program at Instituto Marangoni, the prestigious design school.

Unfortunately, the UK recession hit just as Tee was finishing up and companies halted visa sponsorships. In fact, she was almost hired by a renowned fashion house. “My sad story is I got in Alexander McQueen, in the embroidery department,” she recalls, but the job offer was revoked after she disclosed her work permit situation. “I was so gutted by it. I had to go back home.”