Sophia Lanawan sits in her office in Copenhagen. Her voice, warm and reflective, carries easily over the phone.
There is a calmness to her words, but underneath, you can hear the thread of determination that has carried her through years of new beginnings.
“I sometimes feel I can divide my life into two parts,” she says.
“The years growing up at home, and everything that started after gymnasium.”
That “everything” began when she left Denmark to be an au pair in the U.S. Right after school, she moved to New York, where weekends were spent helping at a small fashion show.
This sparked an interest she hadn’t fully realized until then.
A personal ad looking for a husband
Sophia is 26, and her roots stretch between Denmark and the Philippines.
Her mother was born in the Philippines and moved to Lendum in North Jutland, Denmark with Sophia before she turned one, joining her father through a family reunification.
Growing up in Lendum, going to school in Sindal, and later in Hjørring gymnasium, Sophia says life felt ordinary, like any other childhood in North Jutland.
But her mother’s journey began decades earlier:
“My mother came to Denmark because my aunt, who lived here in Denmark, placed a personal ad in a newspaper on my mothers behalf in the 1990s. This was long before Tinder. My mother received twelve letters! She tells that story often,” Sophia says laughing.
Her father’s response to the ad sparked a three-year exchange with a few visits before they married in 1999.
Her mother moved to Denmark in 2000, bringing baby Sophia with her, along with memories – including the dress she wore the first time she met Sophia’s father at the airport, which Sophia still holds on to.
Hands-on fashion experience
At the fashion show in New York Sophia she learned the mechanics behind a runway: setting up the space, organizing events, assisting with model auditions.
“It was hands-on, and I loved it. That’s when I knew I wanted to do this for real.”
Returning to Denmark in 2020, Sophia enrolled in a fashion program in Herning, a small town far from New York’s busy life. The contrast was stark.
“Initially, I was a bit down about not being in New York, but I stayed focused because I really wanted this education,” she says.
“And in retrospect, it was fine. Being in Herning after international experiences created a hunger in me – a desire to explore more.”
For her internships, she was determined to leave Denmark. The first internship took her to Amsterdam, and her final internship brought her to the Philippines, at Vogue Philippines, as an editorial production and fashion intern.
“It was incredible,” she says.
“I was handling photoshoots, logistics, printing decks, hanging clothes.”
She rented her own small condo near Vogue, with only a family friend from her mother’s childhood picking her up at the airport. She had to learn to commute and navigate the city by herself.
“That’s when I truly felt my Filipino side emerge.”
Sophia didn’t speak Tagalog at first, and navigating daily life became a personal challenge.
So when she eventually came back to Denmark, she began taking Tagalog lessons every Saturday, continuing a journey of self-discovery she started abroad.
“I started to understand my mother in a new way and realized there was so much I didn’t know about her. It sparked a hunger to learn more about Filipino culture,” she says.
For Sophia, understanding her identity became intertwined with understanding the people and places connected to it.
Fair fashion
Now, Sophia works at Global Fashion Agenda in Copenhagen as a Digital Communications Coordinator, managing storytelling and digital content for projects that aim to create meaningful change in the fashion industry.
“Sustainability has always been part of my life. Since my teenage years, I’ve been into second-hand fashion,” she says.
Her education, internships, and job have shown her how social responsibility, ethical production, and environmental concerns all connect.
“It’s not about being unable to buy or produce, but about doing it fairly – and understanding what that really means,” she says.
This approach shapes her daily decisions, combining creativity, responsibility, and impact.
Home and heritage
Sophia’s connection to her Filipino heritage continues to shape her perspective, even from Denmark. She doesn’t plan to move to the Philippines for now, realizing that cultural ties and language practice can coexist with her professional life.
“I still want to return to practice the language and daily life, but I see there are many ways to nurture my connection without living in Manila,” she says.
“But you never know”, she adds.
Her mother now enjoys sharing these experiences, recognizing how Sophia’s curiosity has grown from what might have been a gap in her early upbringing.
The journey that began with struggling to understand her mother’s words has grown into a life where her two worlds – Denmark and the Philippines – meet and inform each other. Language, culture, work, and values intertwine, forming a tapestry that is uniquely hers.
Each Saturday Tagalog lesson, each sustainable project, each story she tells becomes another thread, weaving a bridge between past and present.
Between curiosity and action.
Between home and heritage
