Halfway through the battle: Tweetie de Leon-Gonzalez on modeling, designing, and the habit that keeps her moving forward

Tweetie de Leon-Gonzalez and TDLG Designs at MaArte Fair 2024 Wardrobe? Check. Travel essentials? Check. Visa? Still checking.

Tweetie de Leon-Gonzalez had two days to get ready to fly from the Philippines to the United States for the finals of the Ford Supermodel of the World search. She had just won the Philippine leg, which she is careful to call “officially” the first of its kind: a Filipina had competed the year before, she said, but not under a local franchise.

She had just finished college and was deciding what to do next. She had dabbled in modeling and entered “without really expecting anything.”

“I was very young and inexperienced as a traveler, so it was really nerve-wracking,” she recalled. Josephine “Jojo” Kierulf-Zabarte, one of the franchise holders, whom Tweetie calls “Tita Jojo,” flew with her and went everywhere across the United States. “I wouldn’t have been able to do it without her,” Tweetie said.

New York was the first stop. “It was suddenly a whole new world—so big and overwhelming,” she said. She was impressionable at that age, she said, and curious how models from other countries approached the work. She wondered, “Did I measure up?” Then she realized the Philippines “wasn’t too far behind.”

“We had nothing to be ashamed of;the Philippines truly has a treasure trove of talent when it comes to fashion and modeling,” Tweetie said.

Her Preview cover came when she was already thinking about leaving modeling. She had just gotten married and wanted to start a family. Preview was preparing its landmark premiere issue, and Myrza Sison, one of its founders and a friend, asked whom they should put on the cover. Tweetie threw out names. Then Myrza said, “Hey, you know what? Why not you na lang?”

“Me? Wow, I’d be honored. I’d love to do it,” Tweetie remembered saying. “Just as I was planning to walk away, an offer came along that was too difficult to refuse, and I made the right choice in saying yes.”

She tells young women who ask that modeling is not “just glitz, glamour, and easy work.” “It’s very demanding physically, mentally, and emotionally. There is a culture of rejection—you won’t land every job, and sometimes it hits you hard. You need to be tough,” she said.

Modeling was the first of several careers. She co-edited a bridal magazine that began as Cosmopolitan Bride and became Bride and Home, wrote for major dailies, hosted, acted and designed jewelry. “I had no background in acting and no background in design—meaning I didn’t go to school for it,” she said.

What carries her through is preparation. “I was raised to understand and appreciate that being prepared for anything is just as important as doing the job itself,” she said. She tells her children: “If you have something for tomorrow, you prepare for it today.” That can mean sleeping early, organizing your notes, or making sure your hair and nails are neat before a shoot. “Once you do that, you’re already halfway through the battle.”

Recently, she took a short course in design. “It was nerve-wracking, and I wasn’t as technologically proficient as my classmates, but I survived.”

Her jewelry brand, TDLG which stands for her initials, is almost 20 years old. It began with pieces she made for herself, until people around her started asking for them. “Beginning the brand was a huge leap of faith,” she said. Her earliest clients were mostly friends, and some still wear pieces she made in the ’90s. “They’ve never needed repair or restringing,” she said they tell her, which she takes as proof of the brand’s longevity.

Most pieces are handmade, so she can recall one, taking it apart and redesigning it. Mistakes still cost money, and she doesn’t hand that cost to the buyer. “It was my mistake, so I should pay for it, not my client,” she said.

Her favorite pieces are her bug pins, a caterpillar and an ant, which she wears in clusters. She also made a cockroach pin from a brown, elongated stone. Her children hated it. “Mom, it really looks like a cockroach!” “That’s the whole point!” she answered. Nobody wanted to buy it. Only a few artists and creatives appreciated it, and it wasn’t considered “regal” or glamorous enough for most. “That definitely proved costly, but I loved it nonetheless,” she said.

The business side is harder than the creative side. “You have to justify everything,” she said. “But at the end of the day, what wins for me is the creative aspect.”

Her favorite role, she said, is none of those careers. “My favorite role talaga is taking care of my family.” She and her husband wanted six children and have four. She calls the idea that having kids is too expensive a “fallacy.”

“We had to build up to what we enjoy now. But we knew we wanted a family, and we just started with faith,” she said.

From those hurried preparations for her first international competition to building TDLG and raising four children, Tweetie has learned to prepare for what she can and trust herself with the rest. She doesn’t need to know exactly how every new chapter will unfold. Being ready to give it her best—and willing to begin—has carried her a long way.