Daily Inspiration: Meet Julian Angat

Today we’d like to introduce you to Julian Angat.

Hi Julian, so excited to have you on the platform. So before we get into questions about your work-life, maybe you can bring our readers up to speed on your story and how you got to where you are today?
Thank you, VoyageLA, for having me. My name is Julian Angat (he/him), I am a 22-year-old Filipino photographer and fashion designer and the founder of Faces of the Bay: an independent fashion photography house based in Los Angeles and in the Bay Area.

My creative journey started back in 2016 when I bought a DSLR with some money I saved from my 16th birthday. Armed with a shiny, new, open-box Canon Rebel T6, I discovered a passion for picture-taking. I was pulled into the craft initially through the lens of photojournalism. Very quickly, however, my love of photojournalism transformed into one for portraiture. People were my muse. I was born and raised in the Bay Area and I was excited to capture the souls and spirits that surrounded me, decorating my world. I took pictures all over the Bay immortalizing the many faces and places of my community. I made an Instagram account to share what I photographed under the name Faces of the Bay and with that, my artist identity had formed.

Portraits were my specialty. Capturing the essence of a person through their face made me happy, so I stuck to it. Closeups and glamor shots were my earliest forte; eyebrows, noses, mouths, and freckles my subjects. Time passed and I zoomed out a little, exploring the ways the hands can frame a face. I zoomed out a little more and started directing poses, playing with the expressions of the form. I tried my hand at styling and then hair design then makeup. I strived for creative direction from head to shoe so that every strand, sequence, and stroke was a deliberate choice coming from me. I was determined to establish a taste level for myself that was fresh, beautiful, and queer—something that I didn’t see much of growing up. And as I evolved, my portraits reflected that.

I was in the middle of my second year of undergrad when COVID hit. At the time (as I am always), I was questioning the ways through which I can push my envelope and take photos unlike any I had shot before. Styling had piqued my interest but I wanted to do more with garments than dressing a model or adding accessories. I wanted to make clothes! During this time, I attended a fashion show at my school and then a play within that same month. I remember seeing one of the student designers, Mahal Williams, and falling in love with her sustainable clothing brand, Nimiety, on the runway. Days later, I remember being stunned by the work of yet another student designer, Nyah Ginwright, for her costume design in “A Little Shop of Horrors.” Inspired by the artistry they created, and the ways through which the community around me rallied behind them for their work, I was eager to establish my identity as a fashion designer. Using the unadulterated time during the early days of quarantine, I bought a machine and went to work. In a matter of months, I went from sewing pillowcases to creating full suits and ball gowns. Taking inspiration from the genderf*ck movement, drag, and ballroom culture, fabric and design became yet another medium through which I can create.

Three years have passed since I started designing, seven years since photography, and I am grateful to be a lifelong learner within these fields. My journey as an artist has allowed me a platform to share the beauty I get to capture and create with the world. My photos have been featured in publications like “The Guardian” and I have been invited to present my designs at fashion shows yearly. I’m forever grateful for the people who see my work and see me as an artist. More importantly though, I am grateful for the community of whose labor and love I am a product. My community allows me to create. They are the people who donate their fabrics, model my designs, share my work, and drop my name. They support me. My identity as Faces of the Bay has given me an opportunity to manifest the love I have for my community. And with that, I know—for as long as I am a photographer, for as long as I am a designer, for as long as I am Faces of the Bay—there will be people that love me back, right behind me, rooting me on.

I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?
I am currently enrolled in UCLA’s Teachers Education Program in pursuit of an M.Ed. Though I love being an artist and will be one forever, I know education is my calling. As I am beginning my career in this field of education, I now hold identities I’ve never had before. I am a teacher. I teach middle school English, and high school Ethnic Studies, African American Studies, and Asian Studies. I now have students, nearly 150 of them. As I am learning how and challenging myself to become the best teacher for them that I can possibly be, I now have a responsibility to young people to show up for them and role model healthy adulthood. I have a responsibility to model healthy queer adulthood. This brings me to question the ways my role as an artist will have to shift as I prioritize this new marker of my identity— teacher. How can I stay true to my vision of queer, controversial, sensual beauty while maintaining an image of professionalism as I step into new shoes? How can I set a good example of community love for my students through my art? As I pave this new path for myself, I am keeping in mind that my audience is now younger than what I am used to. A Google search separates my identity as Mr. Julian with that of Faces of the Bay. With this in mind, I am seeking out the ways in which my identities marry so that I can stay true and faithful both to my craft and my career.

Can you talk to us about how you think about risk?
Very early in my career as a fashion designer, I was invited to contribute my work to productions and shows. Being recognized for my styling, I was invited to show runway work only a few months after learning how to sew. My photography had given me such a large platform within my community that when I took on the fashion design, I was already spoiled with an audience who was tapped into my creative pursuits. I was in my first fashion show in FW 2021, presenting my collection Fiat Lux. Not much later I was hired to put somebody in drag. Then invited to costume design for UCLA’s largest POC-led theatre company. Then another fashion show for SS 2022, presenting House of Worship. Each opportunity presented new challenges, new design tasks, and new faces with whom I could collaborate on work. For the first time, I was no longer designing to animate a vision of purely mine. I was designing for a collective purpose. Whether it was to present couture down a runway, dress Dany Zuko and the Pink Ladies, or even birth a baby queen— fashion has emerged itself as a means through which I can connect with the people around me. And though I am no longer the atomized contributor to the vision of my art I once was, I am more embedded in my community this way. Taking risks allows me to grow. Opportunities to collaborate open my mind to perspectives I don’t have the insight or positionality to see myself. As Faces of the Bay ages, collaboration will drive its evolution and I’m excited for what’s ahead.

Contact Info:

• Website: facesofthebay.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/facesofthebay/

Image Credits
Luz Thomas in custom FacesoftheBay. Photographed by Julian Angat. AM photographed by Julian Angat. Nneoma Chelsea in FW 22 FacesoftheBay. Photographed by Mohammed Moussa. Julian Angat in custom FacesoftheBay. Micah Mekbib photographed by Julian Angat.