Daily TribuneThe Filipino designer shared on social media how joining a beauty pageant in her youth, and not winning, became the springboard for her to make beautiful things.
Zarah Juan has become known for heralding Filipino creativity through her quirky bags that are highly coveted by the fashionable set.
All photos from @ZarahJuan / IG
Zarah Juan's work with communities of weavers all over the country allow for the trade to continue and thrive, while giving her the opportunity to create interesting designs for her namesake brand.
"Twenty nine years ago, I stood on the Binibining Pilipinas stage as Zarah Jane de Jesus. Subalit, nabigo ako." This was the opening line to a touching Facebook post by Filipino and fashion bag designer Zarah Juan, recalling the year that she joined the Bb. Pilipinas competition, representing the province of Bulacan.
In the same post, Juan talks about how losing the beauty pageant was a defining moment in her life, where she felt like she let down all those who supported her journey. "It felt like an unanswered prayer...I had failed my province, my friends who believed in me, my family, and most of all my mother, na gagawin ang lahat para masuportahan ako. Na maghahakot ng jeep-jeep na mga kamag-anak para pinakamalakas ang palakpakan para sa akin. She never stopped believing in her daughter," she says in the post.
She goes on to share how as the years passed and life moved on, she could not bring herself to find pride in that moment. "Whenever it came up in conversation...Nanliliit ako. I would change the subject, laugh it off, make myself smaller than the memory," Juan explains. "...somewhere inside I had decided that the young woman on that stage was a chapter I was not allowed to claim."
Since then, Juan has built for herself a career as a fashion designer. She got her start in 2007, making custom eco-bags. Ten years later, in 2016, she launched her first collection of handcrafted statement bags, beaded shawls, slides, and accessories under her eponymous label. Her jeepney and sorbetes bags were instantly coveted and collected by the stylish set.
Juan's collection of bags has since expanded, including a retro collection, sculpted in the shape of a television, a boombox, a rotary phone, and a cassette tape, also released in small and mini versions. As part of her ongoing advocacy, Juan continues to work with communities of weavers as a means to help the trade alive and thriving. Last year, she launched her fashion line of printed piña tapis during Artefino.
This year, as a new group of ladies are getting ready to hold court as candidates in the 2026 Binibining Pilipinas Beauty Pageant, Zarah Juan finds herself coming full circle. "I am honored to open the National Costume Competition of Binibining Pilipinas 2026 with a forty piece apparel and bag collection," she announced in the same post. "Every piece carries my whole heart, made alongside a fellow Bulakeño and a legend of Filipino design, Arnel Papa."
For Juan, presenting at the Binibining Pilipinas 2026 is not only a career highlight, but also a chance for her to reclaim that part of herself she had kept hidden for years. "The stage I once left in tears is the stage I now return to as a designer," she adds. "Losing was never the end. It was the setup for something far more magical."
For Zarah Juan, all roads, and the hard work that made the journey a meaningful one, are leading to this night. "God always has a better plan than the one we write for ourselves," she writes. "Twenty nine years later, He is finally letting me see it."
And as a throwback to that night where she stood on the Binibining Pilipinas stage, she signed off her post with "~ Zarah De Jesus-Juan mula sa lalawigan ng magagandang dilag-Bulacan!"
