Inside the Tatler Ball’s evolution of style

Since 2002, Tessa Prieto has been known for maximalist style: outré gowns and ornate headdresses. At the inaugural Tatler Ball, while most women favoured high glamour, she arrived in Joe Salazar’s hoop crinoline skirt with velvet ribbons over a yellow pencil skirt, later laughing she looked like she was wearing a nightgown inside a birdcage.

After Salazar’s death in 2004, she turned to Rajo Laurel as her style evolved. “You make her a dress, she piles on elements to make it hers. Headpiece, accessories, it becomes her own. As designers, we create the foundation,” Laurel says. Through the 2010s she reveled in unusual looks, including one that lit up with Christmas ornaments. He fashioned gowns from her children’s stuffed toys and even from sando bags. In 2008, Laurel made a polyurethane bodice spray-painted silver, followed by a gown of hand-painted nylon wings.

She moved to Cherry Veric in 2017, donning a flower garden of colourful cabbage roses. After the pandemic and a painful annulment, she repeated an Ezra Santos gown worn to another gala, embracing sustainability. Her defining moment came in 2023 when beauty queen Pia Wurtzbach-Jauncey borrowed her crown, then gently placed it back on her head, a silent coronation that restored Prieto’s sparkle after the heartbreak.

Ask Chito Vijandre and Ricky Toledo how their Tatler Ball style has evolved over 24 years, and they laugh: “With more cosmetic enhancements. You always have to look your best.”

The pair, inveterate travellers, have cultivated a signature aesthetic rooted in the English dandy, interpreted with wit and global finds. They stock on wardrobes from London’s Jermyn Street, favouring Tricker’s shoes for their classic yet playful edge.

In a ballroom of black suits, they opt for lush fabrics, unexpected colour and East-West mash-ups: a kimono jacket or hakama—wide pleated trousers—paired with a crisp shirt and bow tie. Over the years they have swapped tuxedos for embroidered Afghan coats, antique smoking jackets and baroque Dolce&Gabbana prints, coordinating so their looks never clash. Comfort now rules, with relaxed silhouettes replacing once-skinny trousers without losing flair.

A fixture of the Tatler Ball, Tim Yap has long been known for looks that draw the eye. His early-aughts debut was audacious: a butter-yellow houndstooth suit by Puey Quiñones with a fabric hump that, he said, made him “look like the Hunchback of Notre Dame”. Paired with bleached blond hair, it set the tone for years of fearless colour and prints.

His experiments grew more theatrical, none more so than the night he appeared in a three-piece layering of suits. Today, Yap’s style has matured into refined European tailoring, proof that restraint can still command attention. He favours classic silhouettes with unexpected details: a Valentino suit with cape-like panels that created a dramatic sweep and, more recently, a Dolce&Gabbana wide-lapel suit whose mottled dye gave timeless lines an arresting edge.

“Tatler Ball is a fashion event. It’s not for holding back,” Yap says.

He remains the go-to designer for many of the country’s most visible women. Over a 32-year career, Rajo Laurel began by drawing inspiration from celebrities and other sources. Longstanding collaborations helped him refine a style he describes as a balance of romance and drama. Early Tatler Ball creations were designed to command attention; now his focus is on designs that reflect each woman’s personality.

His signature style is far simpler. “I’ve basically worn one tuxedo and one black suit that I alternate every year,” he says. “I’m quite minimalist. I don’t have much in my closet, and I only wear my own.” The only variation comes in the form of a boutonniere, a nod to his grandmother’s favourite flower, the lily of the valley. An artisan in Kyoto once crafted him a delicate version from handmade paper, a small flourish on an otherwise understated look.

She has long been a regular on Manila’s gala circuit, wearing Inno Sotto’s gowns of understated drama and fluid grace, Joe Salazar’s classics with sparkling embellishments and commanding entrances, and Dennis Lustico’s contemporary sensuality—figure-skimming silhouettes playful in texture and unapologetically romantic. With Rajo Laurel, Mons Romulo embraced classic lines while, as the designer observes, becoming more adventurous. “After an event in their lives, they bloom and become happier,” he says, recalling a gown fashioned from saris after his trip to India. These days, Romulo often turns to Rhett Eala, whose minimalist, cosmopolitan formalwear reflects a refined modernity, a quiet confidence replacing the high-drama statements of her earlier years.

“Back then, I was more outgoing. Now I prefer a quieter life and simpler styles that let me move freely around the ballroom. The gowns adapt to me, not the other way around. I don’t mind repeating outfits; when I need something new, I have the old ones redone—practical for the times,” she says.

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