The Style Emperors of Cebu

We met Mark and Harley on Nagtabon beach on Palawan Island, we caught our first encounter on a quick Instagram feed, which we shared with our friends on social media before we sat down to an early lunch.

That day we swam for the longest time, talking about everything from open gay rights in the Philipines, to fashion and style. Nagtabon beach is a lovely tropical beach easily accessible from Puerto Princesa city. It features 5 miles of pristine coastline, where you'll find yourself sharing the beach with the coolest people.

We were a bunch of strangers to begin with. Just tourists sharing a beach table and a couple of benches, yet we clicked immediately and our kindred spirits moved closer and we started taking selfies, sharing social media addresses and our food and telling our own versions of travel and the adventures we'd had so far.

Mark and Hurley come from Cebu Island and they told us where to go if we ever decided to visit their island, everything was noted down in our diary with special links online.

Soon we were chatting like friends, sharing a few laughs and naughty giggles about some crazy Filipino habits, like spitting and public urination, they agreed that its ugly but it is what it is.

Most of our questions were answered openly and without hesitation, there was no need to sugar coat anything and it was so refreshing to be able to converse on that level with two beautiful human beings.

When Kasia learned that they were in fact very famous Cebu fashion designers, she knew that we would have to fly there for one purpose and one purpose onlyto make a kaftan out of old silk saris that Kasia had brought along from South Africa, thinking she would make the kaftan herself.

No such luck of course, it was a brilliant idea, thinking that she would be able to hand sew a silk kaftan on this journey. Kasia sometimes has these fabulous ideas as a bonus adventure featureit's a long story, too long for this space.

Soso. .so . . It was because of these two beautiful humans that we landed in Cebu City just a few days later. Meeting with them briefly at the airport before the typhoon arrived and we were left traumatised thinking about our journey.

But it all panned out perfectly fine, we landed safely and due to our delay we were able to make plans for Mark and Hurley to take us on a day long tour of Cebu City, showing us the best the city has to offer. It was also 31 December and we wanted to party, and party we didlets just leave it at that.

That early morning when we returned from our New Years Eve extravagance we went past Harley's personal assistant's house (at 3am, no problem at all) to fetch a measuring tape, so Kasia could get measured and the fabric could be handed over.

We did it in the hotel reception, the receptionist was a little shocked and amazed as I was swiftly handled by two professional stylists and we bid our goodbyes.

Three days later a WhatsApp arrived with the creation. It was the HarleyRuedas & Mark So creation and it looked perfect. It took a whole agonising week before we could view it.

As it happened time was running out and we were headed back to Cebu City for one more night in town before we flew back to what they call the mainland, where we met up with the 'Style Emperors of Cebu', Harley Ruedas and Mark So's new title.

These two humans were amazing, they had been given some imperfect fine fabric without a proper brief and no further fittings and they created a masterpiece.

The gown was perfect even though the material we gave was not, the fit was perfect, a true princess moment.

Next week we pick up on the last bits of the story as we head home. Back to life - back to reality.