Fashion
Anne Curtis Stays True to Her Roots
A fixture on Preview covers for over two decades, Anne Curtis stands as a defining face of Filipino style and authenticity amid an evolving industry.
Published on Sep 2, 2025
Nineteen-year-old Anne Curtis arrived bright and early for an outdoor shoot with just a couple of hours of sleep powering her system. The taping for her teleserye Hiram wrapped up before daybreak, as rigorous shooting schedules often went. Four hours later, at eight in the morning, the ingénue’s radiant smile was in front of another camera for what would be her very first Preview cover.
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Wearing a cornflower blue satin dress with strings of white balloons in tow, the actress lay down in fields of grass as photographer Jose Amigo captured her on film. Despite her jampacked schedule, Anne pushed for the shoot with a recurring thought running through her head: “Oh my God,” she recalls. “I can’t believe I’m going to be on the cover of a fashion magazine.”
Behind the scenes, Preview staffers Vince and Liz Uy—who, like Anne, were still on the outsets of their careers—had lobbied for the young actress to grace the magazine’s cover. Before then, the trio’s collaborations were limited to DIY shoots for Liz’s styling portfolio, creatively directed by Vince and modeled by Anne. The December 2004 issue was all but finished when Vince joined the Preview team. Everything was in place except for one detail: the vacant spot reserved for their yet-to-be-determined cover girl. “For several years, Preview had been on a strong run of model covers—which I loved—but I also missed the era when celebrity covers carried a strong element of transformation,” the magazine’s former creative director says. “I wanted to bring that back.”
Coinciding with this was Anne’s high-profile move from GMA to ABS-CBN, which led to her role in Hiram as Dina Bonnevie’s headstrong on-screen daughter, Stephanie Borromeo. Vince considered it an “opportunity.” “Anne was in a moment of personal and professional transition,” he explains. “That freshness made her the perfect face to reintroduce that spirit of reinvention to Preview’s covers.”
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PHOTO: BJ Pascual.
Call this a full-circle moment, because no other term could aptly describe the circumstances today. Over two decades after her sunshine-laden cover debut and with at least 12 more covers marking several milestones, Preview enters its 30th year with Anne Curtis at the forefront, carrying the weight and lightness of everything in between.
From the Ground Up
Currently, her presence plays across screens both old and new in It’s Okay to Not Be Okay, marking her return as a soap opera headliner since her titular role in Dyesebel in 2014. In the Korean drama adaptation, Anne portrays Mia Hernandez, the Filipina iteration of Seo Yea Ji’s Ko Moon Young, both a deconstruction and an homage to her teleserye roots. The series is a “dark fairytale,” for one, which sought to shine a light on the once-taboo topic of mental health in the Philippines. And while It’s Okay to Not Be Okay streamed on Netflix, like Anne’s previous teleserye oeuvre, it also aired on free TV, which made the show—and its message—reach a wider audience.
To effectively deconstruct a medium and tinge the “darkness” to a fairytale landscape, an artist must know it well enough from top to bottom, from the inside out. Like it or not, gazing into the past is a prerequisite for adaptations and reinventions, and her teleserye and latest appearance in Preview are no different.
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On ANNE: Embroidered blazer, custom, ANTONINA. PHOTO: BJ Pascual.
In the case of her covers, the past is met with a dozen and more stories each treated as not-so-little stepping stones for what’s next. After December 2004, Anne appeared on the cover again merely six months later, for the magazine's 10th anniversary special featuring her as one of “Television’s Brightest Stars” alongside the likes of Bea Alonzo, Iza Calzado, and Alessandra de Rossi.
This issue was the first time BJ Pascual had ever purchased a fashion magazine. He would later photograph Anne for several Preview covers, including this one—a production he praised for its vision of fashion as fantasy.
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On ANNE: Skirt, custom, ANTONINA. PHOTO: BJ Pascual.
Anne's succession of Preview covers charted not only her transformation but also the publication's evolution. There was July 2007 with Anne’s shaggy pixie cut for her Best Dressed headliner cover. March 2008 saw her in a pasteltoned swimsuit and a bouffant that, according to Vince, “most celebrities would shy away from.”
Anne paid homage to now-National Artist Salvacion Lim-Higgins wearing one of the designer’s archival pieces and sporting cone-sculpted hair in November 2009—a cover Anne considers one of her favorites. “Wearing those delicate outfits—it nearly gave me a heart attack!” She recalls. “I was so careful with the outfit. We had an event for that. It was such a treat for me, and the shoot was so beautiful. I felt like it was timeless.”
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On ANNE: Top, custom, KELVIN MORALES. Osmeña Pearl Earrings, P48,700, NATALYA LAGDAMEO, Basement Level, Shop 3, The Peninsula Manila. PHOTO: BJ Pascual.
In September 2011, she wore a white mermaid-esque Michael Cinco couture gown, Anne's signature look traded in for lightened brows and crimson-red rolled tresses. As striking as it was, Anne’s next cover upped the ante even more. For the December 2013–January 2014 issue, much of her face was veiled behind an “#Unselfie” card, a tribute to the survivors of Typhoon Yolanda. She didn’t waver when the concept was raised. “Especially because there was such a bigger meaning to it,” she adds.
One cultural touchpoint, however, finds its path towards the 17th anniversary issue in June 2012, where Anne, alongside her friends Georgina Wilson, Solenn Heussaff, Isabelle Daza, and Liz Uy, posed in elevated athleticwear while leaning on uneven bars, just in time for the 2012 London Olympics. Aside from a glossy editorial that showed a playful contrast between high fashion and athleisure, Preview shot a video of the four hamming it up to the tune of the popular Carly Rae Jepsen track “Call Me Maybe.” It spread like wildfire. “It went viral,” Liz recounts, “which was rare at the time...It reflected how Preview was able to tap into the cultural moment so well.”
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On ANNE: Pants, custom, KELVIN MORALES. Bondi Bangles, P990. Earth Bangles, P990. Venice Bangles, P990. ELSKA ATELIER. elskaatelier.com. Oval Pebble Ring [left], P3800. Coin Ring [right], P14,000, NATALYA LAGDAMEO, Basement Level, Shop 3, The Peninsula Manila. Origin Bangle [styled as an anklet], P250, NAWA PHILIPPINES, Instagram/nawa.ph.led as an anklet], P250, NAWA PHILIPPINES, Instagram/nawa.ph..
Interspliced with behind-the-scenes footage from the cover shoot, the impromptu music video removed the aspirational veneer of the seemingly picture-perfect barkada, revealing a group who were, simply put, just the best of friends. While Preview and the rest of the pop-culture-attuned society baptized them as the “It Girls,” Anne squirms at the thought of it. “I don’t think we all looked at ourselves as ‘It Girls.’ Like, it’s so cringe to hear us say, ‘We’re It Girls.’ Eeeh! No,” she laughs. “It wasn’t something we called ourselves.”
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PHOTO: BJ Pascual.
One of the more enjoyable aspects of the era, however, was how work and hangouts often blurred into one, with numerous projects lined up between them. The allure of the “It Girls” can likely be summed up best by that video's virality: Hundreds of thousands of viewers simply saw a couple of gal pals having unabashed, unfiltered fun. Because despite the sheen of celebrity, those moments had proven that they were, in fact, still real girls. “It’s the relatability of us being friends and enjoying what we do,” Anne reflects. “Again, I don’t like to say that we’re an It Girl or whatever. But I would have to say it’s someone who is at the place where you’re not competing with anyone,” she continues.
“You’re there to just be yourself. I’d rather be an It Girl like that than be a mean girl.”
Woven Identities
After gazing into the past comes the solid present, a time shaped by everything else. With a dozen covers, Anne has a smorgasbord of experiences to draw from, but, curiously enough, this recent cover shoot lands as one of her most compelling yet, according to her.
“I only saw the concept the day before, but doing the cover was in the works for a while,” she recounts on a Zoom call, a few days after the whole-day shoot transpired. “It was a definite yes, regardless of what the concept was. But it’s so beautiful in the sense that it looks like artwork. I don’t think I’ve ever done anything like this before.”
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On ANNE: Dress, custom, RENZ REYES. Pearl Drop Earrings, P16,500. Brass Bangle, personal. NATALYA LAGDAMEO, Basement Level, Shop 3, The Peninsula Manila. On BOMBA: Polo and trousers, KELVIN MORALES, kelvinmoralesph.com. PHOTO: BJ Pascual.
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PHOTO: BJ Pascual.
Garbed in custom homegrown ensembles by the Preview Best Filipino Fashion Designers 2025 honorees Antonina, Kelvin Morales, Renz Reyes, Jaggy Glarino, and Axel Que, Anne figures in a series of tableaus that place her into Philippine pastoral landscapes echoing the storied brushstrokes of National Artist Fernando Amorsolo. In one, Anne embodies the mythic first woman, Maganda, who sprouts from a stalk as the legend goes; in another, she sways in between bamboo poles mid-tinikling with dancer Bomba Ding as a portrait of a dalagang bukid.
It prompts memories of Anne’s days as a young girl when she spent days playing luksong baka, patintero, and langit lupa after moving to the Philippines at 12 to pursue a career in show business. Born in Wangaratta, Australia to a Filipina mother and an Australian father, the actress says her identity is not one or the other—nor does one side diminish the worth of the other. “I’ve spent more than half of my life in the Philippines, but just because I’m mixed, I don’t think that makes me any less Filipino,” she says.
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PHOTO: BJ Pascual.
For her movie debut, 12-year-old Anne portrayed a girl named Dahlia in the 1997 Peque Gallaga fantasy-adventure Magic Kingdom: Ang Alamat ng Damortis, where her lines were in pure Tagalog. Off-camera, she had been confronting the language barrier in the early days of her move. “I was already speaking Tagalog kahit hindi ko siya naiintindihan,” she recalls. “It was more of memorizing it.”
The exact moment at which her fluency in the language occurred isn’t something that can easily be pinpointed, but it had been as natural and unquestionable as her Filipino heritage. “You have people saying, ‘Oh, she’s not Pinay, she lived in Australia’ or ‘She has Australian blood,’” she says. “But me living here and being in the depths of all the culture—you have to just look at pop culture, which I’ve been part of on Showtime and everything—it’s highly rooted in Filipino values.”
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On ANNE: Top and skirt, custom, JAGGY GLARINO. Drop Earrings, P29,000. Brass Bangles, personal, NATALYA LAGDAMEO, Basement Level, Shop 3, The Peninsula Manila. Yakap Chokers, P2250 [as a set], NAWA PHILIPPINES, Instagram/nawa.ph. T’Boli Brass Cuff and Rings, custom, JAGGY GLARINO. PHOTO: BJ Pascual.
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On ANNE: Brass Bangles [right hand], personal, NATALYA LAGDAMEO, Basement Level, Shop 3, The Peninsula Manila. T’Boli Brass Bracelets [left hand], custom, JAGGY GLARINO. PHOTO: BJ Pascual.
To Anne, this is not a matter of torn identities that have conflicted many mixed-race and diaspora kids. Instead, it’s a whole identity in harmony. For the past two decades, to not know the name “Anne Curtis” as a Filipino is to live under a rock hidden in uncharted, far-flung lands–virtually impossible. Like a figure embedded in the strands of modern pop culture, the actress had the uncanny ability to unify different walks of Filipino life.
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PHOTO: BJ Pascual.
Such was also the case for a fashion publication like Preview. “She marked a turning point for us. Until then, the image of high fashion was largely associated with models. With Anne, we began to see how a celebrity—especially one with a strong personal brand—could bring fashion to a wider audience,” Vince reflects. “She helped bridge that gap between high fashion and mainstream culture, making it more relatable yet aspirational. In many ways, she also inspired other celebrities to embrace styling, transformation, and the artistry behind fashion editorials.”
From Anne’s perspective, the balance of these sides was not a matter of one or the other, much like her Filipino-Australian identity. “There’s no intention,” she says. “It’s just really who I am.”
Rooted in Truth
Natural and intrinsic, but willing to topple constraints attached to the life of a celebrity are concepts that have marked Anne’s nearly 30-year career. As a cover girl, the actress treats herself as a “blank canvas” that, in hindsight, has shaped images in Preview that symbolize epochs of Philippine fashion.
“If you put yourself in a box, you’re closing a door of what could be a fashion moment or an iconic cover,” Anne states. “I like to turn up and see where the creativity brings me. It’s not every day you get asked to be on the cover of a magazine. If you are trusted to take on that role, it comes with excitement. I still have that giddy feeling.”
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On ANNE: Dress, custom, AXEL QUE. PHOTO: BJ Pascual.
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PHOTO: BJ Pascual.
In the last minutes of the interview, Anne’s five-year-old daughter Dahlia, the namesake of her mom’s first movie role, wanders into the Zoom call. Anne affectionately coos in response to her daughter's questions. The contrast is not lost when the conversation turns back to the teenage girl from her first cover. “Hair pa lang and kilay, no?” she laughs when asked what has changed for her since then. “When I did my first Preview cover, I was so young. Where I am in life is so different. I think I’ve come a long way in terms of maturity, in terms of fashion, in terms of knowing who I am as a person.”
What exactly is the secret of Anne, who has been a lasting presence in the public consciousness—from the days of print, of TV, and now, of digital feeds and streaming screens? To echo her earlier words, it might just be really who she is, like an unshakeable fact of life. At least for her, the answer is simple.
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PHOTO: BJ Pascual.
“Authenticity,” she responds in a firm tone that leaves no room for doubt. “Because people will always see through you. And that’s not only in the industry that I’m in—in a workplace, in friendships—it’s a real thing. Staying true to yourself and being authentic to who you really are.”
The faces may shift—a teenager on the rise, a couture-clad chameleon, a heroine born from Philippine legends—but the woman behind them has never disappeared from view. Perhaps that’s the truest magic of Anne Curtis.
PHOTO: Bea Felice Panganiban
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PHOTO: Bea Felice Panganiban
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PHOTO: Bea Felice Panganiban
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PHOTO: Bea Felice Panganiban
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PHOTO: Bea Felice Panganiban
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PHOTO: Bea Felice Panganiban
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PHOTO: Bea Felice Panganiban
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PHOTO: Bea Felice Panganiban
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PHOTO: Bea Felice Panganiban
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PHOTO: Bea Felice Panganiban
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Produced and Styled by the Preview Team
Editor-in-Chief: Marj Ramos-Clemente
Creative Director: Bacs Arcebal
Managing Editor/Producer: Reg Rodriguez
Assoc. Multimedia Director: Jana Jodloman
Photographed by BJ Pascual. Styled by Paulina Singh, assisted by Kyla Villena. Beauty direction by Kyla Villena. Makeup by Robbie Piñera, assisted by Viel Navarro. Hairstyle by Raymond Santiago. Model: Bomba Ding. Bomba Ding’s grooming by Team Muriel Vega Perez. Cover story by Katrina Maisie Cabral. Video direction by Jana Jodloman, shot by Teddy Garcia Jr. Set and production design by AdSet Production. BTS photos by Bea Felice Panganiban. Social media coverage by Sophia Rosello. Photographer’s assistants: Damian Estrellis, Richard Detita, Wilson Rosgueta, Abel Santos, and John Paul Dela Cruz. Shot at Baked Studios. Special thanks to Warren Dimen and Pickup Coffee.
* Editor’s note: No animals were harmed in the production of this cover.
Kat is Preview's Lifestyle Editor, explorer, and occasional rhymer. When not globe-trotting, she's over her computer, writing her next big novel.