Indigenous Filipino Woman Becomes Longest-Living Model to Appear in VOGUE

For some years now, in the world of entertainment and fashion, particularly on the covers of magazines, the typical beauty prototype established by society has been eradicated, paving the way for the inclusion of people who for a long time they were excluded.

In order to show the customs, traditions and cultures around the world, for its April issue, the Philippine edition of Vogue became the first magazine to feature the longest-serving model on its cover, as it featured a Filipino woman, who is considered the last indigenous tattoo artist to use the age-old and traditional technique of her native town.

This is Apo Whang-Od, a woman from the Buscalan people, Kalinga, in the Philippines, also known as Maria Oggay, who is famous for being the tattoo artist who still practices the ancient technique mambabatok and that, for years, it has been summoned by different communities to print sacred symbols on people who were about to cross a threshold in their lives.

The woman has been tattooing her skin with the help of the tools of her ancestors since she was a teenager, a method with which she has sought to maintain her customs, traditions and culture, which, in addition, she has sought to teach her descendants, whom she has trained and inspired. to continue with this technique.

Apo Whang-Od has gained popularity and has been highly sought after by her clientele in the last 15 years, as thousands of visitors from different parts of the world come to her town with the illusion of being tattooed by her hands, a technique that she learned from his father and that has allowed him to mark the skin of many people not only with sacred symbols of ancestors, but with something meaningful to that person.

In addition, his trade has allowed him to mark important stages in the lives of the men and women of his town, since, according to his beliefs, the ladies tattooed themselves in order to promote fertility and beauty, while in the case of the knights was to show that they became hunters.

Now her profession led her to pose her symbolic tattoos and become the longest-lived model to appear on a cover of the famous magazine Voguewho chose it for its complex and ancient method of tattooing the skin with the help of very fine tools made from bamboo.

Because tradition indicates that a mambabatok he can only pass down his craft within their bloodlines and as Whang-Od never had any children of his own, he chose to teach the technique and teach all his knowledge to his great-niece Grace Palicas, whom he chose as his apprentice since she was 10 years old. Although she was initially reluctant, today she is proud to be in charge of continuing her family legacy.