Minsan’s Dano Tingcungco reveals the surprising intimacy in bags

The journalist-designer makes use of memories, both personal and collective, to form the leather accouterments he creates. The result: bags telling of the characters of both maker and bearer

Words by PAULINE MIRANDA Photos by ROB FROGOSO

“If it’s something very personal to you, it’s something that will be with you all day every day, even when you sleep. You won’t think it’s a chore because it’s a part of you,” Dano Tingcungco, who most may probably recognize as a senior reporter on one of the country’s major networks, says about his other rekindled craft: shoemaking.

Dano Tingcungco often describes himself as a “reporter sa umaga, sapatero sa gabi.” Born and raised in a family of shoemakers, leather and all its forms has always been a part of his life.

By day, he weaves together words and facts to report on the country’s most recent events. He sews and puts together various skins to create bespoke footwear and one-off bags at night—and with any other free time he has, at that.

Minsan, Dano says, came as part of his process of getting to know and mastering himself as a person and as a designer. This understanding of his identity as an artist and of his vision about what he wanted his craft to be led to him establishing his own brand, forging his own path in the shoemaking and leatherworking business.

“There’s a specificity that I would want to do. It comes with the territory of knowing yourself and knowing everything that you want,” he says. “There are no rules but your own. I have a very specific vision… [of what] I want the project to be when I’m at the helm of it. It’s all informed by experience, and I feel like it needed to be its own entity for it to fully have the freedom to move.”

So although Minsan is Dano’s very own venture, it remains anchored on his and his family’s experiences and memories.

“Minsan is really an homage and a reference and a love letter to moments,” Dano says. “Moments that are both temporary and permanent. A moment is not designed to last forever, but a moment can change you permanently.”

This idea is distilled into the very material of Minsan’s objects. Akin to moments and memories that are ours and ours alone, each bag carries a combination of colors and leather skins that is often one of a kind, meaning no two items could be exactly the same.

The journalist was born into a family of shoemakers, experts in the local leather craft, which naturally influenced Dano from a very young age. Over the years, he has found himself drawn back to it and this March, launched his own brand, Minsan.

By day, he weaves together words and facts to report on the country’s most recent events. He sews and puts together various skins to create bespoke footwear and one-off bags at night—and with any other free time he has, at that.

Minsan, Dano says, came as part of his process of getting to know and mastering himself as a person and as a designer. This understanding of his identity as an artist and of his vision about what he wanted his craft to be led to him establishing his own brand, forging his own path in the shoemaking and leatherworking business.

Dano Tingcungco often describes himself as a “reporter sa umaga, sapatero sa gabi.” Born and raised in a family of shoemakers, leather and all its forms has always been a part of his life.

“There’s a specificity that I would want to do. It comes with the territory of knowing yourself and knowing everything that you want,” he says. “There are no rules but your own. I have a very specific vision… [of what] I want the project to be when I’m at the helm of it. It’s all informed by experience, and I feel like it needed to be its own entity for it to fully have the freedom to move.”

So although Minsan is Dano’s very own venture, it remains anchored on his and his family’s experiences and memories.

“Minsan is really an homage and a reference and a love letter to moments”

“Minsan is really an homage and a reference and a love letter to moments,” Dano says. “Moments that are both temporary and permanent. A moment is not designed to last forever, but a moment can change you permanently.”

This idea is distilled into the very material of Minsan’s objects. Akin to moments and memories that are ours and ours alone, each bag carries a combination of colors and leather skins that is often one of a kind, meaning no two items could be exactly the same.

“The perfect bag does not exist”

In a 2006 New York Times article entitled “Sometimes a Bag Is Not Just a Bag,” writer Daphne Merkin elaborates on how bags, perceived by some as a mere accessory yet by others as a daily necessity, is a collection of the various fragments of oneself, of “the crucial Filofaxed information as well as the frivolous, lipsticky stuff.”

A bag is, as many before me have said, an extension of oneself. It is our most intimate companion, one we hold the closest to ourselves, one privy to all the physical pieces of our day-to-day. It is the sole witness to our moments, from that commute, to that party, that meeting, to that date. The choice of color and form of the bag is also an expression of one’s character or mood, even if only for the moment or occasion.

So perhaps, creating bags that would fulfill this purpose for others could come across as daunting, and would require some higher level of perception and understanding not just of the objective craft of bag-making, but of the care and intimacy bags must possess, too.

The Piga is the latest in Minsan’s foray into bags, and is its most customizable shape to date as the wearer is given freedom how to tie and use its strap, closure, and drawstring.

The Piga is the latest in Minsan’s foray into bags, and is its most customizable shape to date as the wearer is given freedom how to tie and use its strap, closure, and drawstring.

Minsan’s selection of bags—three shapes as of this writing, in the form of the Pisil, Piga, and Pipi—is born both as a coming together of Dano’s influences and experiences, and a culmination of his years-long search for what the perfect bag is. “It took a while. It took years. I’ve attempted it many times before, to build what I perceive as the perfect bag,” he recalls. “Until I realized, the perfect bag does not exist—at least not in the way I envisioned it in my imagination. Anything is perfect for what it is designed to do.

“When I let go of that very rigid idea in my head and realized that yes, a bag does not have to be everything, but it can be damn f*cking good [at] what it is made for, that’s when I felt like I’ve hit a breakthrough somewhere. When I let go of that idea, that’s when it started getting fun.”

The fun is clearly evident in the bag’s shapes and in the various skins Dano personally curated. Take the Piga, the latest shape in Minsan’s selection. The sack-like pouch bears multiple points of personalization, allowing the wearer to customize its form to what they deem suitable for their use.

“There’s a private joy in it that only you have the privilege of experiencing”

Meanwhile, the Pisil, a refined, round bag suitable for more formal occasions, makes the fun more intimate. As its outer bears more neutral shades like kape or karbon (brown, black), opening it reveals linings with brighter shades like the pink rosas or the ripe golden-yellow kasoy. This alludes to and adds to the very private joy one gets from one’s bag, Dano says.

Likewise some linings are even in skins like suede, providing a softer handfeel when one reaches into the bag. “There’s a private joy in it that only you have the privilege of experiencing. That is an experience that cannot be replicated by anything. It’s something that is very experiential. And when you feel it, the joy that it gives you, the private joy, it’s something valuable.”

Anatomy of Minsan bags

While Minsan has grown into a team of five since its launch in March 2021, Dano still personally curates the skins used for the shoes and bags the brand makes. He handpicks each one, he says, basing most of the choices on feelings, both emotional and physical. The colors he picks to be part of the collection are often ones that evoke memories.

The combination of the dark teal lumot with the electric green kamias, for example, is heavily influenced by Dano’s childhood. He recalls: “There was one time my mother went home with a bunch of plastic straws—’yung ginagamit sa softdrinks sa tindahan—in this exact color. I was six years old. The colors never left me, so when I was sourcing and found this leather, I couldn’t let it go.” The kamias, another favorite color of his, harkens back to the first bag he bought for himself.

“I realized, the perfect bag does not exist—at least not in the way I envisioned it in my imagination. Anything is perfect for what it is designed to do.”

Other colors are a play on collective memory. The light, toasted brown of the apa colorway is an ode to the airy, crunchy cones that come with tubs of ice cream. Meanwhile the deep blue dyobus, reminiscent of the dye used to make old school uniforms look new, is a timely back-to-school period release. Then there’s the diliman, a maroon obviously in reference to the state university.

Putting together the color combinations are instinctive for Dano. “It’s more honest that way. If it doesn’t feel right with you, how can you expect others to feel right about it?” he says.

Translucence is another important factor for Minsan’s bags. It refers to some unevenness in the leather’s colors, which to Dano is more valuable. “You think it’s a flaw at first, but if you look at the leather more closely, you would realize it’s aniline dyed. It’s vegetable tanned. So the dye seeps, soaks all the way through the leather. And the tendency of that is it showcases the history of the hide, the skin, the marks of the animal that lived in it… That in itself gives you a lot of character.”

Each color of skin used is named after things that call back memories of old. Take for example the true blue dyobus, named after the Filipinized term for fabric dyes, which was in turn named after the popular Joe Bush dyeing and cleaning service in the days of Old Manila. Photo courtesy of Minsan

In March this year, Dano launched Minsan with its first collection of open-heeled shoes called Pavilion, inspired by the sapatilyas popular from the ‘30s to the ‘60s. Photo by Mac Jayson Villaluna

The true blue dyobus, named after the Filipinized term for fabric dyes, which was in turned named after the popular Joe Bush dyeing and cleaning service in the days of Old Manila. Photo courtesy of Minsan

In March this year, Dano launched Minsan with its first collection of open-heeled shoes called Pavilion, inspired by the sapatilyas popular from the ‘30s to the ‘60s. Photo by Mac Jayson Villaluna

And although he doesn’t define it, as he talks about Minsan—his personal journey, process, and his collaboration with fellow artisans in his team—it becomes apparent: There’s more to each bag than just its color, texture, and translucence. It’s just as much about the instinct the creators used in putting each piece together, the emotion one gets from using the piece, and the collaboration of one artisan to another, of bag to wearer.

The Pipi is Minsan’s take on the tote, with over a dozen color combinations. The bags are often mono-editions, with no two bags carrying the same combination of colors or leather. Photo courtesy of Minsan

In a sense, each bag is a vessel of memory and emotion, passed from one hand to the next. One lives and breathes with it until the time comes for it to be passed down once again, much like an heirloom. This is what Dano hopes his bags come to be. One that, like the many fleeting moments that have found itself seared into memory, will last forever. ●

Part II of III of Nolisoli.ph’s Makers Special

Minsan bags and shoes are available at Guava Sketches at Greenbelt 5

Cover photography by Rob Frogoso
Creative direction by Nimu Muallam
Art direction by Levenspeil Sangalang
Produced by Christian San Jose
Special thanks to Guava Sketches

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