Maxine erroneously says Imelda invented the terno

The country's representative Maxine Medina looked every bit a queen at the 65th Miss Universe preliminary competition and was clearly confidently beautiful as she walked the stage—but she committed a little slip in a recorded portion of the show.

In a video documenting the ancillary event at Vigan that showcased Filipino design, candidates modelled ternos, which Medina mistakenly identified as an invention of former first lady Imelda Marcos.

"The terno was actually invented by our former first lady, Imelda Marcos. She invented these butterfly sleeves and they use it [to] cover their face," Medina said.

Research for the book done by Gino Gonzales and Mark Lewis Higgins, published in the book "Fashionable Filipinas", notes that the terno cannot be attributed to one designer. There are photographs of women wearing the terno as early as the late 1800s, long before Imelda Marcos was born. The use of the terno as a "power suit" dates all the way back to 1908.

Medina also erroneously explained that "terno" refers to its being a one-piece dress, but it actually initially referred to the matching camiso, pañuelo and saya. "Terno" was not used to refer to the single dress until the 1940s. — Aya Tantiangco/BM, GMA News