“And the secret garden bloomed and bloomed and every morning revealed new miracles.”

“And the secret garden bloomed and bloomed and every morning revealed new miracles.”

“She made herself stronger by fighting with the wind.”

"So long as Mistress Mary's mind was full of disagreeable thoughts...she was a yellow-faced, sickly, bored and wretched child...When her mind gradually filled itself with robins...with springtime and with secret gardens coming alive day by day, and also with a moor boy and his "creatures," there was no room left for the disagreeable thoughts...[and so she became well and happy]."

As a child, I liked reading The Secret Garden, and enjoyed watching its Tagalized version of “Si Mary at ang Lihim na Hardin” (raise your hands those who can relate to me!) It’s been more than a year since I last released a collection. In between then and now, a lot has influenced the creation of such. Set to be released spring of early this year, cancellations deterred it. But I trust the universe swayed circumstances to this point in time. I don’t think this collection will be as sweeter if not because of the events that caused the delay.

The Secret Garden has little to do with the visuals of the collection, but the journey towards it. Felt like I have discovered a personal secret garden and tended it from the time of my last released collection up until now. Still looking forward to its fullest bloom, a desire for a constant connection and help in the characters of new people, Dickon, Martha, Susan and Ben – it is a journey towards progress. The journey of Mary Lennox is also my journey – journey of rediscovery. From being sickly, foul-tempered, unsightly, she tends to the secret garden, she got engrossed by it and helped to her “miraculous” restoration – no longer bitter and friendless. A journey of more self-discovery, away from my “sickly and bitter” self as well. Changed from glory to glory. The secret garden is shared, passing on the miraculous restoration – to Colin then to Mr Archibald Craven. 

This collection is a creation of a discovered self. The pieces are not loudly visually secret garden but the ruffles, the patterns, the appliques are slight touches of it. The pink color is mainly due to the color of my personal copy of the novel. The grey and the black is an emphasis of a not-so-friendly past which must not hinder a positive outlook, represented by the minor floral patterns and appliques. Hoping that I may pass along through this collection “the miraculous restoration”, may this collection be a source of inspiration. On to our fullest bloom.

View the lookbook here.

This lookbook is a combined effort of creative minds and I am so proud and blessed to meet this people:

Photographer: Khrizel Asis

Hair and make up artist: Eloisa Fernandez

Models: Joyce Reyes, Brenda Basas and Frances Lim

Location: The Hollow Box

Kindly visit @wear.missmerie on Instagram for more on this collection and Miss Merie's Facebook page.

Also sharing more quotes from the novel:

“If you look the right way, you can see that the whole world is a garden.”

“At first people refuse to believe that a strange new thing can be done, then they begin to hope it can be done, then they see it can be done--then it is done and all the world wonders why it was not done centuries ago.”

“Where you tend a rose my lad, a thistle cannot grow.”

“Of course there must be lots of Magic in the world," he said wisely one day, "but people don't know what it is like or how to make it. Perhaps the beginning is just to say nice things are going to happen until you make them happen. I am going to try and experiment.”

“Much more surprising things can happen to anyone who, when a disagreeable or discouraged thought comes into his mind, just has the sense to remember in time and push it out by putting in an agreeable, determinedly courageous one. Two things cannot be in one place.”

“I am sure there is Magic in everything, only we have not sense enough to get hold of it and make it do things for us”

“Sometimes since I've been in the garden I've looked up through the trees at the sky and I have had a strange feeling of being happy as if something was pushing and drawing in my chest and making me breathe fast. Magic is always pushing and drawing and making things out of nothing. Everything is made out of magic, leaves and trees, flowers and birds, badgers and foxes and squirrels and people. So it must be all around us. In this garden - in all the places.”

“One of the new things people began to find out in the last century was that thoughts--just mere thoughts--are as powerful as electric batteries--as good for one as sunlight is, or as bad for one as poison. To let a sad thought or a bad one get into your mind is as dangerous as letting a scarlet fever germ get into your body. If you let it stay there after it has got in you may never get over it as long as you live.”

“At that moment a very good thing was happening to her. Four good things had happened to her, in fact, since she came to Misselthwaite Manor. She had felt as if she had understood a robin and that he had understood her; she had run in the wind until her blood had grown warm; she had been healthily hungry for the first time in her life; and she had found out what it was to be sorry for someone.”

“He had made himself believe that he was going to get well, which was really more than half the battle.”

― Frances Hodgson Burnett, The Secret Garden