In the name of FAME

You see them in some of the big furniture stores in the US and you have that gut feel that they’re made in the Philippines. Truly proudly Pinoy! Brad Pitt could be lounging on a Filipino chair at home after doing diaper duty for Shiloh. You’ll probably find our home accessories/decor brightening up a nook in a home in Europe. And our chic native bags slung over the shoulders of Hollywood celebrities.

Filipino design is world-class, indeed! It can go toe-to-toe with the best in the world. Focusing on Filipino design excellence is the FAME (Furnishings & Apparel Manufacturers Exchange) show of Citem (Center for International Trade Expositions & Missions) set for April 15-18. The show is open to the public on the last day from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. (entrance fee is P200).

Yes, it’s showtime once again!  And this time, FAME promises to be even bigger and better. For sure, the venue of this April’s FAME is so much bigger — the humongous SMEX Convention Center in the country’s biggest shopping mall, SM Mall of Asia in Pasay City overlooking Manila Bay. Now in its 25th year, FAME is moving from its old home (for the past 10 years) at the World Trade Center to a snazzy new address.

Can’t wait to move to their new FAME home are Milo Naval, creative director of the April staging of the bi-annual FAME show (Milo’s doing it  for FAME for the third time in a row), and Tes Pasola, who’s designing the furniture/furnishings setting of this show that promises a lot of surprises.

What surprises are in store for buyers and guests?

“It’s a surprise!” Tes Pasola tells us with a mischievous laugh. “For this show, we’re doing a different setting. We try to do something new all the time. We’ll have a horizontal-shaped area, where we’ll have a part that’s elevated with a wooden flooring. We’ll cover it with paper (old newspapers, partly donated by The Philippine STAR) to give a weathered, autumn-like, greyish feel. It also gives you a feeling of something odd or weird. This has never been done before.”

Says Milo Naval, “We’re positioning the show as a boutique show, with a more personalized look in terms of services and styling. We started doing this in our past two shows.”

Tes has worked with every material you can imagine (or can’t imagine) “I’ve used different mediums for different companies that I design for.”

Always thinking out of the box, Tes never stops dreaming up new things to use. One day, she thought about asphalt (maybe a road was being paved near her place). “I made it into jars,” she relates. “However, my manufacturer was not too open about it. But I said, ‘No, you have to do it because it’s a new medium.’ They didn’t want to do it again because it’s so smelly because of the tar ... We will never run out of local materials to use.”

Is there anything Tes hasn’t used yet?

“Human flesh, I guess,” she answers with a hearty laugh.

She adds, “It’s not really using new materials. There are a lot of materials that have been used. But the game now is in fusing them together, creating the most intriguing works out of the most interesting materials.”

What’s Tes’ most intriguing work?

“The ones I’ve done for CITEM,” she’s quick to reply.

And Milo Naval’s?

“The most intriguing thing for me is working with Tes Pasola,” says Milo. “It’s intriguing working with designers and getting to know their sensibilities. You get to learn a lot.”

As for the CITEM-hired consultancy firm from the US, Milo says, “It’s also nice to see the views of people from the other side, to give our works a more global appeal.”

For the umpteenth time, Tes and Milo are asked this question, “Is there a Filipino design?”

Tes replies, “We have a very mixed background. We learned how to carve from the Spaniards. We learned pop art from the Americans. And then there’s our own sensibility as islanders.  There’s a fertilization of cultures — from there, we create things that I can’t say are very Filipino, but there’s a sensibility there. How we adapt to all these cultures is the Filipino part.”

Tes elaborates, “That’s our clear advantage over the Chinese. Americans are going to China because it’s so cheap there. But when you ask the Chinese to make angels, the cherubims have chinky eyes. And the spelling of Noel and Christmas is wrong. But because we’re Christians, Catholics, we know about the red-cheeked and blue-eyed angels.”

“Filipino design is very, very exotic,” gushes Japanese designer Kohei Takata of Essence Company. “It blends well with European design. Philippine materials are very unique.”

According to Takata, you’ll see Philippine furniture in Japanese homes and hotels in Japan.

“Filipino furniture and designs are already famous in Europe,” says Takata, who’s been bringing our furniture to different parts of the world for 20 years now. He also runs a little shop in Tokyo, retailing and wholesaling Filipino furniture.

Art Dimaano, assistant director, Trade Division of Asean-Japan Centre, informs us, “We’re coming up with a product development program to promote Asean companies as far as furniture and accessories are concerned.”

Through the years, FAME has proven that there’s cash in trash. Scrap king Carlo Tanseco has certainly come up with a treasure of a collection with his “Reverso,” which makes use of scrap wood and bark reincarnated into a contemporary houseware collection.

Taking us back to some of the recent FAME shows, Milo shares, “We received good feedback from our past shows. It was like going back to our roots when we presented our weavers.”

“They were authentic weavers from Mindanao who were dressed in their tribal costumes with matching headdresses, but they were sitting on a white stylized setting,” says Tes.

According to Milo, some buyers come not so much to buy as to observe “what we’re doing, what new things are being done here. Like in Paris, we go there basically to observe, to see the trends. The same thing is happening here.”

Talking about fashion, designer Cesar Gaupo, who’s this show’s curator for fashion accessories, is coming up with a special setting that will surely be a visual feast.

At a Hong Kong show in July last year, Cesar designed the Philippine booth that had 12 manufacturers exhibiting. He designed accessories in metallic gold and silver. “I upgraded our local materials, like our shell, to look high-end for the international market.”

This seasoned designer’s experience and exposure to the international market have served him well. “You try to give them an image of Philippine design,” he points out, “but everything boils down to marketability. No matter how fresh your idea is, if you don’t know what your market needs, it will be a hit-or-miss thing.”

Cesar travels to Europe twice a year to breathe and imbibe new ideas. He gives this priceless advice to designers: “Be consistent with your work and design. It’s not just a matter of following the latest or what’s in fashion. You should always put some meaning in your work, it should say something.”

Certainly, our holiday decor says a lot about Filipinos as lovers of all things Christmas-y. And now, in the deft hands of Al Caronan, these symbols of Christmas become enduring icons.

“Although the glitz and glam are still there, it’s a cleaner Christmas,” says Al who’s curator for the show’s holiday decor. “Nothing too decorative or embellished. I’m using more traditional local materials like a lot of capiz, metal, abaca, anahaw.”

Our holiday accessories have merrily found their way into big stores in the US like Macy’s, Neiman Marcus, and Bloomingdale’s as well as Lane Crawford.

“Because labor costs in China are rising, even China now buys from us,” says Al.

Which is not to say we don’t have our fair share of the problems. Says Al, “Everybody is waiting for the next big thing. But we desperately need a shot in the arm. We have many problems. We need to anticipate what our clients need. We should always be ready.”

For the first time, CITEM, which is celebrating its 25th anniversary this year, is adding a health and wellness category to the FAME show.

Of course, we’re wishing FAME all the health — and wealth — in the world!