The crown was the first link. Now, Kylie Verzosa is forging the rest herself.

PHOTOGRAPHY BJ Pascual
CREATIVE DIRECTION Loris Pe&ntilde;a
STYLING Yanna Lopez
With a crown and an international best actress award, Kylie Verzosa could have carried on with that trajectory of her career just fine. Winning Miss International 2016 and being the last one from the Philippines in a decade is a peak in itself. &ldquo;Now I look back and think, oh, wow, that was just the beginning of everything,&rdquo; she reminisces, wearing the same gold Tiffany HardWear earrings that had her turning heads at the Cannes Film Festival red carpet just months ago, this time paired with glasses and her own matcha concoction for hours of screentime in her high-rise office.
When she pivoted into entrepreneurship and became a founder, it didn&rsquo;t exactly come out of nowhere. &ldquo;I have always wanted to build something of my own,&rdquo; she says, growing up watching her parents turn the hotel and restaurant Forest House into a Baguio institution, and graduating with a business management degree from Ateneo de Manila.
What she wanted to build came later. A self-proclaimed perfectionist and people-pleaser, she wanted to solve problems. Inconvenienced by the absence of high-quality yet accessible shapewear, she founded and developed Sola. Stressed by the time- consuming, bureaucratic process of setting doctor&rsquo;s appointments and prescriptions here in the Philippines, she joined telehealth platform, &amp;you, with her fiancé Emil Eriksen, a Danish entrepreneur who comes from a family of medical practitioners.

Dress, SASSA JIMENEZ. Tiffany HardWear Graduated Link Necklace in Yellow Gold, Tiffany HardWear Small Link Ring in Yellow Gold with Diamonds, Tiffany HardWear Small Link Bracelet in Yellow Gold, and Tiffany HardWear Earrings in Yellow Gold; all TIFFANY & CO.

With Sola, she hit the ground running, learning as she went along. &ldquo;It was genuinely messy at first,&rdquo; she admits. &ldquo;Creating something that hasn&rsquo;t really existed here, there&rsquo;s no blueprint to just follow.&rdquo; Toiling until the wee hours, learning the legal and operational side of the business, and juggling it with her rising acting career, going on her laptop after being on set for hours, she would catch herself doubting it all: &ldquo;Are people even gonna buy this?&rdquo;
When Sola launched in February 2024, she was going up against giants, the O.G. Spanx and celebrity-backed Skims. Locally, Verzosa had enough star power; she could have just gone white label&mdash;source everything from a mass-market producer and slap her name on it just like a typical run-of-the-mill celebrity brand&mdash;and made a killing with the trust that came with the reputation.
But as a woman who shops her own shapewear and a public figure celebrated for her physique, she had an obsession with perfecting it. With her content creation background, she knew she had to create a frictionless e-commerce shopping experience and nail the packaging to feel just like a PR unboxing. Today, the Sculpting Shapewear, born out of up to eight rounds of revisions to be as inclusive as possible, remains a best-seller throughout Southeast Asia. In two years, the brand has expanded into a full range of underwear, ready-to-wear with shapewear features, and even skincare.

&ldquo;You have to have good relationships to succeed in business. You want to have people root for you to win. You have to make your team trust your vision and trust you.&rdquo;

Dress, ANTHONY RAMIREZ. Shoes, ALAÏA. Tiffany Victoria® Graduated Line Necklace in Platinum with Diamonds, Tiffany Victoria® Tennis Bracelet in Platinum with Diamonds, and Tiffany Victoria® Earrings in Platinum with Diamonds; all TIFFANY & CO.

Dress, ANTHONY RAMIREZ. Tiffany Victoria® Graduated Line Necklace in Platinum with Diamonds, Tiffany Victoria® Tennis Bracelet in Platinum with Diamonds, and Tiffany Victoria® Earrings in Platinum with Diamonds; all TIFFANY & CO.

&ldquo;That season of my life taught me how to be structured with things,&rdquo; she looks back. &ldquo;If you want to build a business, you have to build systems, not just products.&rdquo;
&amp;you, launched only in June 2025, is a whole new animal. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s not just disrupting a whole category. We&rsquo;re trying to change how people in this country think about healthcare and their health. That&rsquo;s a much longer game,&rdquo; she says as partner, investor, and brand director.
Coming from years of experience as a public figure might seem like quite the pivot, but the same cultural fluency and self- assurance that made her thrive have become her niche as a founder. &ldquo;It taught me a lot about people and leading a team. It&rsquo;s a completely different skill set from having a vision and scaling,&rdquo; she says. &ldquo;You have to have good relationships to succeed in business. You want to have people root for you to win. You have to make your team trust your vision and trust you.&rdquo;
This dichotomy is not without tension. Creating businesses where she is also the target market, she finds herself at a crossroads at times. &ldquo;For the creative aspect, always trust your guts. For strategy and scale, you have to trust the numbers. If it&rsquo;s not my expertise, I trust my partners and my team.&rdquo;

Dress, JOB DACON. Shoes, FEMME LA. Bird on a Rock by Tiffany Wings Rolo Pendant in Platinum with Diamonds, Bird on a Rock by Tiffany Wings Drop Earrings in Platinum with Diamonds, Bird on a Rock by Tiffany Wings Narrow Bangle in Platinum with Diamonds, and Bird on a Rock by Tiffany Wings Wide Ring in Platinum with Diamonds; all TIFFANY & CO.

Dress, JOB DACON.Tiffany Knot Pendant in Rose Gold and Platinum with Diamonds,Tiffany Knot Ring in Rose Gold and Platinum with Diamonds,Tiffany Knot Hoop Earrings in Rose Gold and Platinum with Diamonds, and Tiffany Knot Double Row Bracelet in White Gold with Diamonds; all TIFFANY & CO.

She has also struck a balance working with Eriksen, her complete opposite. &ldquo;He&rsquo;s super good at scaling, and I am good at creative direction. He manages operations, growth, speed management, and I&rsquo;m good at marketing and PR,&rdquo; she compares. &ldquo;We complement each other.&rdquo;&nbsp;
&ldquo;He grounds me. He&rsquo;s not in the showbiz industry&mdash;and it&rsquo;s so easy to get lost in this industry, with all the glitz and glamor,&rdquo; she continues. &ldquo;He always asks me, &lsquo;Is that what you really want?&rsquo;&rdquo; She&rsquo;s turned down brand projects to put her business first.
&ldquo;The future is here,&rdquo; she declares. As for acting, she is not closing her doors just yet: &ldquo;I would love to come back, but for the right roles, for the right message, and with the right people.&rdquo;
Just like in her business systems, she has optimized her routine: no phones in the morning, meals with protein, high-intensity weight training for an hour in the gym three times a week, and doing most of her work in her office. These all keep her mind clear and uplift her mood. While her ideas usually come at night on Sundays, she encourages work-life balance within her team and tries to keep all work within working hours.
Her packed days are the way they are for the sake of restful, nurturing evenings. &ldquo;My nighttimes are really sacred to me,&rdquo; she says. It&rsquo;s when she unwinds with her fiance and catches up on her podcasts, especially now that she has her own,&nbsp;Almost Honest. There, she gets to ask the hard questions to other achievers like Senator Risa Hontiveros and Dr. Aivee Aguilar-Teo. She admits, &ldquo;I always want to be productive.&rdquo;

&ldquo;I want to take care of my future. I want to be able to build something of my own.&rdquo;

Dress, ANTHONY RAMIREZ. Shoes, RENE CAOVILLA. Sixteen Stone by Tiffany Necklace in Platinum and Yellow Gold with Diamonds, Sixteen Stone by Tiffany Hoop Earrings in Platinum and Yellow Gold with Diamonds, Sixteen Stone by Tiffany Bracelet in Platinum and Yellow Gold with Diamonds, and Sixteen Stone by Tiffany Ring in Yellow Gold and Platinum with Diamonds; all TIFFANY & CO.

Dress, ANTHONY RAMIREZ. Sixteen Stone by Tiffany Necklace in Platinum and Yellow Gold with Diamonds, Sixteen Stone by Tiffany Hoop Earrings in Platinum and Yellow Gold with Diamonds, Sixteen Stone by Tiffany Bracelet in Platinum and Yellow Gold with Diamonds, and Sixteen Stone by Tiffany Ring in Yellow Gold and Platinum with Diamonds; all TIFFANY & CO.

Her partnership with Tiffany &amp; Co. is less like a brand deal and more like a natural progression. &ldquo;Tiffany has been a big part of my personal journey,&rdquo; she says. It all started with Audrey Hepburn from the classic Breakfast at Tiffany&rsquo;s; Verzosa gained popularity for having a refined bearing just like Hepburn during her Miss International days. She would admire pieces like the Sixteen Stone by Jean Schlumberger at the Greenbelt flagship and images of Bird on a Rock (the legendary motif also by Schlumberger, reimagined into Bird on a Rock by Tiffany in 2025 and worn by Verzosa in these photos).
&ldquo;The essence of Tiffany is elegance and refinement, but they are also bold in their own way,&rdquo; she says. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s very &lsquo;if you know, you know.&rsquo; And yet people still ask, and I&rsquo;m proud to say it&rsquo;s Tiffany. It starts a conversation.&rdquo;
The HardWear has become her constant, whether it&rsquo;s her gold ones, her large and micro links in silver, or the red gold set with diamonds gifted by Eriksen. She wears it when she&rsquo;s off to Cannes, dressed up in a Mark Bumgarner gown or down with a black Sola tee to the office or on the set of&nbsp;Almost Honest. Like everything she does, what she puts on has to mean something.
&ldquo;I&rsquo;m at an age where I don&rsquo;t want to waste any time,&rdquo; she explains, a decision that not only applies to her work. &ldquo;I want to take care of my future. I want to be able to build something of my own.&rdquo;
She&rsquo;s building the life she actually wants&mdash;one system, one decision at a time. &ldquo;I want to own my time,&rdquo; she sums up. For Verzosa, that&rsquo;s always been the whole point.

Dress, JOB DACON. Bird on a Rock by Tiffany Wings Rolo Pendant in Platinum with Diamonds, Bird on a Rock by Tiffany Wings Drop Earrings in Platinum with Diamonds; all TIFFANY & CO.

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MAKEUP Anthea Bueno
HAIR&nbsp;Renz Pangilinan
PRODUCTION DESIGN Ron Godinez Jr. 
SENIOR DIGITAL EDITOR&nbsp;Maura Rodriguez 
VIDEO DIRECTOR&nbsp;Aijalonica Lei 
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EDITORIAL ASSISTANT Jeron Ellana 
STYLING ASSISTANT&nbsp;Tere Gabat 
PHOTO ASSISTANT&nbsp;Damian Estrellis, Richard Detita, John Paul Dela Cruz, Abel Santos and Hendrix Santos 
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PRODUCTION ASSISTANT Tiara Garma 
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Dress, CHEETAH RIVERA. Bird on a Rock by Tiffany Bird Ring in Platinum and Gold with Diamonds and Bird on a Rock by Tiffany Bird Pendant in Platinum and Gold with Diamonds, both TIFFANY & CO.

The Business of Becoming: Kylie Verzosa

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