She Wears Couture, I Wear Cotton

The Story of a Sisterhood with Grit and Style

The two of us have built businesses, fought over car radios, and shared dreams that stretch across continents. This is a love letter to the woman who always texts back faster than any man ever has.

Couture & Cotton

She’s the type of woman who makes an entrance. You hear her heels before you see her. Then it’s the perfume, always something elegant with a floral, confident note. Her closet is a glittering archive of structured skirts, designer stilettos, and nail polish lined up like Pantone swatches. She wears couture like it’s her birthright.

I, on the other hand, am cotton. Cool, clean, and comfortably undone. I like T-shirts softened by time and sandals that don’t judge me. My aesthetic is inspired artist in transit, fueled by matcha, design books, and ideas that arrive faster than I can sketch them. I drink a glass of wine and paint as fast as I can, before that last sip disappears.

The Business of Us

We’re sisters, three years apart and fluent in at least four languages per sentence. Born into the same story, yet written in different fonts. Still, we somehow landed on the same one for our brand materials and our kitchen cabinet preferences. Go figure.

She studied business in Manila. So did I. She moved to London. I crossed the Pacific. Now she’s in Australia and I’m in the US. But we’re on the phone or text every single day, across time zones, moods, toddler meltdowns, and design deadlines.

We’ve built things together: actual businesses. A net-zero energy modular home company, for starters. She handles the numbers, while I handle the drawings. We daydream about a diamond shop; she envisions the sparkle, while I imagine the structure. Our lives don’t mirror each other, they braid together—one strand in silk, the other in raw linen.

The Fight That Wasn’t

I still remember our one real fight. In college, we drove through Manila traffic like it was a sport. Both of us were always exhausted from our long commute. One day, she blasted the car radio so loud I tried to turn it down. She turned it back up. I turned it back down. Five seconds later, she got out of the car and said, “Drive it yourself.” I drove home in silence, then took a sidecar, a train, and another sidecar to school that day. Neither of us has ever brought it up again. She’s forgotten the last song on the radio. But I still remember the scent of her perfume in the car.

Different Peas in a Pod

We don’t have the same accent, passport, or favorite drink, but we orbit each other with the same intensity. Same obsessions with business and psychology. Same deep belly laughs. Same tears at the same songs. Same unwavering loyalty.

She helps me choose clothes I didn’t know I needed. I help her design things she didn’t know she wanted. We send gifts across oceans, sketch dreams over voice notes, and remind each other every day that love can be effortless, stylish, and wildly productive.

Some call it sisterhood. But this feels more like a cosmic arrangement.

Her $12,000 Chanel Purse

I wouldn’t trade our relationship for anything. Not even all the designer bags in the world.