fter getting over a failed marriage, a bloody divorce and the ugly rumors that accompanied the upheaval, Manila's former top model Joyce Oreñ has found her wings anew, thanks to love—and the ultra-chic accessories store that became her passport to a new life.

A little extra luxury never hurt anyone, and Joyce Oreña knows this by heart. And so, when the accessories designer and owner of the store Jô heard that the Christmas tree at the Greenbelt 3 mall needed a decorator this year, she volunteered for the role. She always thought the trees from the past holiday seasons could have used a more exciting spin, could have been more luxurious but tasteful. Her idea of ornaments? Fashion accessories as Christmas tree décor, a dizzying amount of Swarovski crystals, yards of velvety stained ribbons fro Switzerland , Italian handmade metal charms, and carefully crocheted appliqué stars hand-stitched like baseball gloves.

For this interview, she actually has on a sample of her design for the tree. It is a carefully arranged charm necklace, from which hang the colored crystals and metals and orange lace ribbons in what appears to be a random manner. But, as Joyce explains, the piece was sketched first and mulled over before the work was handed over to one of her staff.

Her key words for this holiday project are, after all, “opulent, rich, individual and a return to the artisan.” Which are really key words to Joyce's own personal style. The girl likes a sleek solid-colored dress, an impeccably clean silhouette, and the personal touch of bold, exotic jewelry handcrafted in some obscure village in India .

Joyce Oreña knows more than a thing or two about keeping appearances, and knows that it goes beyond just putting on the next coveted designer brand. Today, at 35 and still very svelte, she is wearing her look: a simple georgette top, drainpipe denims, her décor-to-wear hanging on her long, thin neck, and her seriously combed, polished hair tied at the back. And heels, of course. Her fashion seems seriously studied and, for someone who likes to talk about her passion for fashion, it just might be. As a former model's model who's landed on the cover of Hong Kong and Singaporean magazines, a regular on any Most Stylish list, a fashion columnist for The Philippine Star, and one who now works as a designer of accessories, Joyce knows the importance of image, and that a small unruly detail can make or break an entire look. Her manner, however, is more relaxed than that, her laughter more generous.

We are meeting to talk about Christmas décor, yes, but we also want to ask about the nasty rumors that spread in the fashion community after she left her husband in Hong Kong in 2001, went back to Manila briefly, and then disappeared in Italy for six months before coming back to open Jô in 2002. During those six months, she supposedly met a man in Italy and fell madly in love, became self-destructive, spent millions of her husband's money, and finally lost her mind. “Meron pa, that I met this rich Italian guy and that I go around with bodyguards daw,” she tells me over a glass of red wine at M Café. It still boggles her mind how people wove these stories when she was not communicating with anyone in Manila those six months, except for a few messages sent to her mother. She finds it even more-mind-boggling that the stories were spread by those closest to her. “When you think about it, if they really wanted to help me, what good would talking about me and telling those stories to other people do? Did it help me? No. I've been quiet for more than four years. I opted to keep quiet because the truth will eventually come out.”

The truth, according to Joyce, and this is the first time she's talking about it to anyone outside her family, is that she went to Italy, lived in a hotel, and met a man who introduced her to the best shops and the right trade fairs, because she was then collecting inspiration for an accessories business she wanted to put up when she returned to Manila. There was no rich Italian, and no bodyguards. She did her own groceries and drove herself home. And crazy? “I was completely of sound mind. I was actually at my soundest at that moment, when I understood what I really wanted.”

What she really wanted was out. Her marriage to Andreas Stalder, a Swiss hotelier 13 years her senior, was falling apart. She met him when she was 21 and married him at 28 in a very tasteful, lavish wedding on a yacht in Hong Kong , where she would live for two years.

“I was not happy, but I thought I was. I don't know,” she says. “It was too late. I only realized that I still had so much to do when I was already there and bored with my life because he was traveling extensively. Worse, when we got married, I really felt useless. Imagine, I didn't have family in Hong Kong , and I really didn't like that kind of lifestyle, where you lunch with your girlfriends. And you come home to an empty house because he's not there. It was not the life I wanted. I wanted to go back to school, but he actually discouraged me in so many ways.” She pauses. “And I wasn't really treated the way I wanted, let's just put it that way.”

Her usual days would begin with organizing the household. “It was so clean that you could lie on the floor, ha.” If her husband was not around, she would wake up late. If there were no functions, she'd go out to window-shop and meet with friends. She couldn't take a job because Andreas would often bring her on his trips abroad. “I felt more like a possession rather than an equal.”

And then one day, she woke up, looked at herself in the mirror, and felt really, really old. “It was something you kept putting behind you, you didn't want to deal with it until it got so big. I thought, this is not me. ” She felt like a decoration—an Armani-clad decoration, relegated to wearing flats “because he was shorter than me. I really allowed him to do it, so there's no one to blame but me, no one else to fix the situation but me.”

So she packed her bags and left for Manila . She lived with her mother, who was then living with her sister Ces Drilon, the broadcast journalist. Joyce says it was really a big risk for her because, according to her, except her mom, she couldn't find support from anyone. “Because I created an image of this ideal guy, when actually he wasn't. people though I had an incredible marriage, and I just made them think that. I kept quiet so everybody thought that everything was okay, that I had a happy life, that I'm so lucky, that I am able to travel.”

And then she left for Italy , and as not responding to most calls from Manila for six months. In the meantime, it was Andreas who was confiding in her family. (Joyce's family declined to be interviewed for this story.) Thinking about it now, she can actually laugh at the craziness of all the stories, the exaggerations. The once disciplined model's model, a favorite of all the best designers because of her presence on the catwalk, who followed the rules and was there at call-time, seemed to have let herself go and was nowhere to be found. The dutiful daughter who wanted to become her mother had strayed, and was not returning calls. “It was not the typical Joyce that they knew,” she explains. “I was always the reliable Joyce, and for the first time I was free and did what I wanted.”

At 36, she can now see things in perspective. That she was too young when she met Andreas, that she brought up in a society where girls are expected to finish school, get married and raise a family. That yes, she didn't know any better. She's accepted all that.

But there are still things that she wants to set straight. “What I really don't like is that people say I used up his money—because it's also my money. What do you mean ‘his money'? We were married. We shared a credit card, and so I can choose what I spend on. He's not living in a shanty now, his lifestyle is the same, so I did not finish his money. What I spent is really just one month's salary for him.”

She admits she likes expensive things and always has. Even when she was modeling, ask anyone—she'd spend her talent fees on Gucci, Prada, the Helmut Lang. “I like quality things. I'm not talking about brands and stuff, but unfortunately quality comes with a price. I could spend a thousand dollars on a bag, kulang pa yun. But for another person, siempre that's crazy.”

She's still not on speaking terms with those who have wronged her. A fashion insider who used to be close to Joyce says that, until now, he really has no idea what happened to Joyce all those six months. But he also adds that he's glad that chapter of her life is over. Joyce says she does not have anger in her heart anymore. Last year, she went through a very “difficult and expensive” divorce, but she's moved on. It was Jô that helped her—that, and Fabio Ceccarelli, her 36-year-old Italian boyfriend, who is also a designer, a feng shui expert and a teacher at a university in Florence .

“I was already passionate before. You know that, people have nothing but good things to say about me when it comes to work, I give 100% or more or nothing. That's how I want to live my life. And that's how Fabio lives his life. We're completely on the same wavelength. But we have a lot of clashes, ha, we fight a lot. But that's really part of it when you're both creative. Fiery. I told nga my mom, baka matakot ka. He really allowed me to fly, he was the first to believe in what I was capable of doing.” Now she says she lives life passionately, from work to even fixing the house. “I was really good at that because my mother was such a good cook. I really wanted to be her. I'm really a homebody and housewife material. I cook, and that's what Fabio enjoys.”

She still gets to travel a lot, about four to six times a year to attend the leather and jewelry fairs with Ceccarelli. It's all for Jô, which has played a big part in helping her get over the past and move on. When the store opened in 2001, it easily attracted a solid clientele, and also a lot of flak. The store, with its lour animal prints, metal curlicure curtains and opulence, not to mention the price of the merchandise, intimidated the cynics in the fashion world. But it still stands, successful. “No one forces customers to go inside. It's all about being true to myself,” Joyce says. “That's what I did in the past: I compromised too much of myself. So now I want to live my life, and live the way I want. That's what's most important.”

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