By Ronald Constantino
IMELDA’S NEPHEW – Months back Vanity Fair carried an article on the “black sheep” of the Romualdez clan.
The VF article titled made in Montauk opens with: “Architect and interior designer Daniel Romualdez has worked for Diane von Furstenberg, Aerin Lauder, and Tory Burch, to name a few style setters, but the place everyone falls in love with is the simple, 1,730-square-foot Montauk retreat Romualdez shares with his investment-banker husband, Michael Meagher.
Bob Colacello learns how the black sheep of a Filipino political dynasty (and Imelda Marcos’s nephew) stuck to his own vision of the good life.”
KOKOY’S SON – The Romualdez “black sheep” is the son of the late Kokoy Romualdez, younger brother of Mrs. Marcos, ambassador to the US and Leyte governor.
He was not meant to be an architect or decorator. He was sent to Georgetown Prep and then to Yale. Romualdez was supposed to get an MBA in economics and political science but ended taking up history of art and architecture.
Vanity Fair wrote: “My father wasn’t happy about me going to architecture school. And because of that I was sort of the black sheep of the family. Coincidentally, when my father was dying, the (2012) Architectural Digest 100 List came out and I was listed. It was the first time that my father understood what I was doing.”
Father and son kissed and made up.
IMEE’S COUSIN – Romualdez credits his cousin Imee Marcos, the eldest daughter of his aunt Imelda, for sparking his interest in interior decorating.
“She was a great influence on me as a kid,” says Romualdez. “We would be in a yacht in the Philippines and everybody would be water-skiing. And she and I would be tucked away in the air-conditioned library, poring through decorating books and magazines. When she went to Shah of Iran’s big party in Persepolis and would describe the tents that Henri Samuel designed for it and show me pictures.”
Well, may all those misunderstood and branded “black sheep” turn out to be like Daniel Romualdez.
