Queenmaker and PR maven Josh Yugen is celebrating the 10th year of his Xpedition magazine this year. Perhaps, it is no longer correct to describe it as "Dubai-based" because his group has set up offices in Manila and Copenhagen to expand its operations. 

The Yugen PR team is ever-busy. One minute, they're scheduling celebrities to join the fashion weeks and the next thing, they're preparing for Miss Universe 2025 auditions coming up for the franchises Josh owns in Bahrain, Pakistan and Egypt.

When it comes to Xpedition, there's never a boring moment when Josh dishes out behind the scenes stories of how they produce it. For instance, he takes pride in the fact that they put BINI on the cover in 2021, even before the all-girl P-pop group made a big name for themselves.

"When they were first shown to me by executives of ABS-CBN, my first reaction was:'oh my God, they're so beautiful, let's put them on the cover.'  I already felt like they're going to be big."

"Just  look at BINI now," Josh points out. "We feel vindicated to have them on the cover back then with the success they have achieved now." 

The cover photo has BINI members clad in couture  outfits by Furne One Amato, posing with a horse in the desert. Recalling the whole experience, Josh says: : "They were so professional. We started the shoot at three in the morning and finished at 2 p.m."  The effort paid off because the  edition  easily sold out and the magazine had to put out a re-issue. 

Josh also has fond stories to tell of Miss Universe queens like Catriona Gray and Pia Wurtzbach-Jauncey. He notes that "back in 2018, we were the first magazine to cover Catriona during her reign. We flew to New York and then, we also flew her to Dubai to do Arab Fashion Week."

"I'm proud to say we were the one who started Pia with the fashion week. She also had the most viewed Arab Fashion Week video of all time," he notes.

The shoot with Pia entailed climbing for 30 minutes to reach the top of the mountain in Sharjah and then putting her after  inside a negative 10 degrees ice lounge.

"She didn't even complain," Josh said of Miss Universe 2015. " Talagang sobrang bilib ako kay Pia sa ugali nya. (This is why I'm impressed with Pia's character). She's very kind and patient. She knows it's art."

Having amassed enough experience in media, pageantry and events, Josh shared that there's only one territory left to conquer, and that's cinema.

"My greatest dream is to produce a movie," he revealed. 

What kind of movie? we ask. "Because I'm romantic, I would like to produce  a rom-com. There are so many young stars now and I would like to give them a break." He mentions young actress Jillian Ward, whom he has gotten close to lately, and actor Michael Sager as some of the fresh faces he would like to work with.

Knowing Josh, it's just a matter of time before he turns his vision into reality. We'll watch out for it!

(Find me on X @annalyn and on Threads/Instagram @annalynblogs)