ABOUT a week ago, on the 16th of June, Cebu witnessed the debut of a new local lifestyle brand called Noa—a brand that focuses on the stories and journeys of materials and how they could live a thousand lifetimes.
“We started Noa from the foundations of this desire to make something out of the excess,” said the 20-something-year-old founder of Noa, Kathleen Alexandra Belleza. She explained that the story began towards the end of 2018, when the Belleza sisters found that they had been sitting on so much excess materials from their family’s interior furnishing company, Belleza Casa.
“We found some very interesting vintage beads, wood, shells, and the like—which were part of our grandmother’s inventory when she ran her own jewelry business back in the ‘80s,” she said. After listening to stories from her mother and grandmother, she started growing more aware about the lifespan and journey of material pieces and, more so, the possibilities of what they could still become. “Every piece is inspired by a specific time, place, or memory. To me, it just made more sense to design pieces in such a way that they came with stories from places and personal experiences in reverence to nature.”
Each piece of material is unique and limited edition. Noa only works with existing materials in their inventory and oftentimes mixes them up with a few new materials they come by. Kathleen shared that the current collection is made up of about 80 percent up-cycled and 20 percent new materials.
“I aim to be transparent with everything when it comes to the work we do—to keep the same philosophy and magic of up-cycling alive,” said Belleza, who sourced, designed and created the first collection with the help of her sisters—whom she tries to involve in the designing phase as much as possible, so as to inspire them to create their own collections in the near future.
Over 50 people attended the launch of Noa to check out the unique accessory collection and got to listen to speakers like Chyrel Gomez talk about her journey on living a zero-waste lifestyle, and Jessica Ouano of ANTHILL talk about her knowledge of sustainable fashion.
Belleza aims to set Noa up as a brand that creates an impact. “I aim to create awareness of our behavior towards the things we bring with us, the things we put on, and the things we have. Everything used well—especially when taken care of—will last longer than it should. As consumers, our choice between fast fashion and slow and sustainable fashion matters more and more every day and so I want to be part of inspiring and even educating people about this.”
Hopefully stories like these end up inspiring people to be more mindful and proactive in the community efforts toward reducing our carbon footprints.