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The biggest fashion influencer in the Philippines and global style icon opens up about letting go of perfection, why she doesn't like to be labeled, and the business of fashion

- BAM ABELLON

Bigger. It's a word that comes up often, in many forms, when something-a year, a project, an idea-is at its genesis. But in an era that is consumed by social media, what does it mean to be bigger? When one has, for instance, tens of millions of followers, how does one become bigger? How does one begin anything again? Heart Evangelista, who has more than 13 million followers on Instagram alone, knows the answers all too well. The trick, she says, is to treat whatever comes knocking on her door as a beginning-an opportunity to take on bigger challenges.

"I never say that anything is an 'ending,' which makes me emotional," she says. "Even if it's the end of a friendship, I don't think of it as the end. I always think of it as the beginning of something. Beginnings are sweet. I don't like the word 'ending.' I feel like there's only one time for things to end and that's when, well, it's all supposed to end. But everything in life is like a beginning for me." An actress since she was pre-teen, Evangelista took a break from making TV shows and movies to pursue an idea that was larger than she could ever imagine: becoming an influential force in the world of fashion, not just in the Philippines but all over the world. The choice of career is in harmony with her selfhood: Fashion is an industry that always aims to go bigger. Even the trend of "quiet luxury" has to be so big that those who are loudly expressing the need to live such life come in droves. But it is also an industry that tries to acclimate to the changing times, not without failure or flaws, but it tries. Then, sometimes, an idea becomes too big, too out-of-the-box, that it can lose its relatability.

When that happens, everything needs to come at least near the proverbial box again.