John Cortez visualizes local beauty of our island’s people to enhance Guam’s image of fashion. John Cortez’s ability to design womens’ wear, style, coordinates fashion shows and productions, and casts models have made him one of Guam’s initial interests for this line of work. 

Cortez currently does visual merchandising for Tiffany’s, Chanel, and has also done BCBG. Cortez has also styled models looks for the cover of Uno magazine.  

Cortez’s career began when he attended the Fashion Institute of Design Merchandising in Los Angeles for a year in 2006. Here he learned different methods of design, style, marketing, and fashion and how to apply these skills in the workforce. 

Cortez started off just helping friends who needed someone with fashion experience. 

Cortez now considers himself lucky to have received attention for his talents. However, he did not have all the knowledge when he first started.  

Returning to Guam, Cortez was asked to scout girls for the next Miss Universe Guam pageant.  

When his younger sister joined the Miss Earth Guam pageant, he attempted to create a simple and classic image that she can use. It was when she did not place that he realized he did not have all the right choices. 

Not having worked in the pageant world before, Cortez began to delve more into the fashion and pageant industry. He began to pick up styles of design and proper presentation.   

Continuing in this line of work, Cortez expanded his networks starting with pageants to connect with possible sponsors. 

He learned the value of connecting with businesses and the people involved in order to promote and connect with other brands, businesses and people.  

Several international fashion networks, both in Guam and globally, look for ethnic ambiguity in that models do not have a definitive race defined by his/her looks. In working in fashion and design merchandising, Cortez learned that the casting directors were almost always looking for ethnic ambiguity, 

“People on Guam are ethnically ambiguous,” he said.   

Cortez mentioned that Guam’s standard of models did not always match the international conventions of beauty. There were local people who did have a picturesque appearance, and they were the ones who should model.   

“I’ve always found that people that should model are the last to model,” he said.  

He knew what image that the current fashion world would need to stick to and he believed that if a model can work in Guam, that model should also be able to work in the Philippines, Malaysia and other countries. 

“You should not try to bend an event to fit you,” he said. 

Cortez encourages the study of an event and deciding whether or not the event fits you.