What is Filipino design? Where do creative men come up with their ideas? How can Manila be improved? How do you build a shelf? And what is up with that cover?

This month, Esquire Philippines brings Kissa Castaneda-McDermott and Devi De Veyra of ELLE Decoration Philippines on board as guest editors. The unique cover was created by award-winning industrial designer Stanley Ruiz, whose works have appeared in the Museum of Arts and Design and the New Museum of Contemporary Art in New York. (The cover is meant to be ripped out and reconstructed as a structure designed by Stanley; instructions inside.)

What is Filipino design? Esquire rounds up a panel of some of the country’s most renowned architects, artists and design legends to answer that question. 

Also in this issue: the most dapper design manual you’ll ever see, on everything from how to build your own shelf, to how to hang a painting, to raw styles, practical functionality, and grunge. You know, the essentials.

Esquire takes a look into the personal universes of four leading men in the fields of arts and design, in a feature on the mancaves where their identity is asserted apart from the chaos of work and family. 

"Dear Erap..." Esquire collaborates with a group of top designers and architects, and comes up with specific, concrete, and elegant solutions for the design problems facing Manila.  

All this and more, this month in Esquire Philippines.