Filipino students crown “Miss SustainaBelle” in sustainability-themed pageant
UTM’s and McMaster’s Filipino student association collaborated to co-host a fashion show featuring outfits made from recycled materials.

On the evening of November 6, the University of Toronto Mississauga (UTM) Filipino Student Association (FSA) and the Filipino McMaster Student Association (FMSA) teamed up to host Binibining SustainaBelle, a pageant centred on eco-friendly fashion.

Starting at 6 p.m., more than 50 UTM and McMaster students crowded the Student Centre Meeting Room for the community event. The venue featured rows of chairs for audience members separated in the middle by a runway, cups of buko pandan on the side selling for $3.50 apiece, and a large Philippine flag taped to a door.

To start, the event hosts ran a “bring me” icebreaker game, calling on participants to be the first to retrieve a series of seemingly random items. The game ended after the hosts asked for “Steve Harvey’s moustache,” whereupon a swarm of guests chased and tackled a host dressed as the American TV star to retrieve his false facial hair.

The hosts followed up with a second icebreaker, a game of limbo. About a dozen participants competed until one guest managed to shimmy under the bar when it was just half a metre off the floor, causing everyone to shout in disbelief.

With the room sufficiently excited, the hosts calmed everyone down with a brief presentation about the history of pageantry in the Philippines. Presenters highlighted that the Philippines’ current culture of pageants originated from American colonial occupation following the Philippine Revolution of 1898, which drew a collective groan from the audience. Despite its origins in imperialism, the presenters noted that watching and participating in pageants have become beloved national pastimes as well as vehicles for feminism and gender expression.

After the history lesson, the hosts invited the audience to form three teams and delegate people to pick from an assortment of recycled materials and art supplies at the front of the room, which each team would use to make outfits for the upcoming model walk. Each delegate approached gingerly at first, then plundered the supplies in a frenzy as their teammates began yelling at them to fill their arms with egg cartons, ribbons, garbage bags, latex gloves, and the like.

The hosts then gave thirty minutes to each team to dress two of their members with their collected materials, and the venue turned positively raucous. Some participants locked in straight away, others panicked and cried hysterically, and all around students shouted over one another in English and Tagalog as everyone endeavoured to bring their artistic vision to life.

Six elaborate outfits materialized at an astonishing rate, with participants carving angel wings out of cardboard, folding construction paper into crowns, fashioning flowing skirts out of excess copies of The Medium and The Varsity, and holding everything together by wrapping the models in packaging tape. All throughout, some participants broke off to help themselves to the buko pandan and continuously took turns re-affixing the Philippine flag, which adamantly refused to remain taped to the door.

As the timer ran out, nerves seemed to cool as the teams calmly and collectively made final touches to their outfits and presentation schemes.

With all the outfits complete, audience members took their seats to watch runway performances from the three teams: Stepkapatids, Isquaters, and Jeepney. The models each took turns walking up and down the runway in pairs, striking poses in front of the flag and a panel of judges, all while being lit up by camera flashes from a squad of club photographers along the way. Each team explained the inspirations behind their outfits, which ranged from Victoria’s Secret models, to the poor, to the Philippines itself.

The groups then competed in a trivia contest and a talent show, which featured breakdancing and a capella renditions of the Backstreet Boys’ “I Want It That Way” and Daniel Caesar’s “Best Part.”

The hosts capped off the activities with a voting period for attendees to determine which team would win the pageant and the “Binibining SustainaBelle” title. In the end, Stepkapatids took home the first-place crown and sash.

Following the event, The Medium interviewed FSA Vice President Events Marie Bueno and FMSA External Director Sum Duff to gain insights into the evening’s proceedings.

The club executives explained that they centred the pageant on sustainability to promote environmental awareness and Filipino culture in an engaging and accessible way. “Normally when you come to a pageant, people come with pre-made outfits,” explained Duff, a third-year studying social work at McMaster University. “So we thought if we brought things that people normally throw away, people could use that to turn it into something that’s new, fresh, and fun for everybody to enjoy.”

“A huge part of Filipino culture is centred on pageantry,” added Bueno, a third-year management and economics student at UTM. “It’s like a whole sport for us to just watch Miss Universe, so it was really nice to have the same vibes tonight.”

Speaking on the inter-university partnership, Bueno said, “we’ve been collabing since 2022, so it’s really an annual event around November to December. We’re really glad to have this tradition of getting together every year, meeting new faces, and working together for years to come.”

Duff concluded, “we try to create a microcosm of Filipino culture in our events to try to communicate it and spread it as much as possible.”

Seeing how popular Binibining SustainaBelle turned out to be, the executives expressed their interest in hosting it again next year.