Mouse in a teapot

Acousins’ get together – with some nieces and nephews thrown in – finally got me to Fables, the café-bar at the Kenneth Cobonpue showroom in BGC. It turned out to be not just a gustatory but an extremely visually exciting experience; add in nostalgia and a lot of catching up and dinner lasted nearly four hours.

If you just fell out of a coconut tree and don’t know what or who I’m talking about, Kenneth Cobonpue is the globally acclaimed designer who has a cult following among international A-listers and celebrities. His Voyager bed was featured in Maroon 5’s music video “Never Gonna Leave This Bed” and Brad Pitt in 2015 famously got one for his son Maddox (long before the infamous breakup). The girls of BLACKPINK each have a different colored Bloom chair.

From the outset he established his identity as a designer and manufacturer from Cebu, Philippines and branded his furniture as KennethCobonpue, even though I can just imagine foreigners, especially Caucasians, trying to pronounce the name. In fact, the French thought the Bloom chair designer was French – Co-bon-pwee, nasal on the syllable bon – until they saw this handsome young singkit guy!

I am basking in reflected glory, being the proud aunt of Ken. His mother Betty is my cousin, and without taking anything away from Ken, she is, I would say, the source and start of it all. She set up Interior Crafts of the Islands in Cebu in 1985 and how she bent, shaped and draped rattan into furniture that went beyond mere utilitarian chairs and tables earned her numerous awards and a flourishing business.

It was also Betty who told her young kids stories, not just the usual “Once upon a time” tales but flights of fancy that fueled the imagination of the receptive young minds. (Another son Bryan, my godson, is a successful graphic designer in San Francisco; some of his work is featured in Playstation and in movies.)

Hence the name Fables, and indeed, the café is a step into fableland – the DJ booth is behind three carabaos; wall-mounted speakers sprout tendrils; a wall of giant, sansevieria-like leaves and another of big old rose colored flowers (I asked Ken what kind of flowers they were; he explained that when you ask a kid to draw flowers, that’s what comes out – “a kid doesn’t know what kind of flower it is!”), both of which enhance the acoustics such that the DJ’s music is modulated and mercifully still allowed conversation. Hanging lamps of wire mesh encase imaginary creatures, most probably from those childhood fables.

The adjacent two-level showroom is a showstopper, a comprehensive collection of Ken’s designs to drool over. (The artist Ronald Ventura has a gallery in part of the upper level.) Aside from furniture, there are lighting fixtures – a personal favorite is the Abbey, a multi-section ceiling light (could it be called a chandelier?) inspired, Ken said, by the architecture of the Manila Cathedral in Intramuros and aptly inhabited by hooded monks. This hangs over a huge 14-seater dining table made of Philippine teak.

The items are crafted in the factory in Cebu, where 300 skilled artisans create these functional art pieces from wood and rattan and bamboo and steel and wire and other materials. All the pieces meet strict international standards, as most of the products are exported.

Now about that mouse in a teapot. There is a series of rechargeable lights made of wire mesh that house a bird on a swing or koi swimming in a pond – they could be made into table, floor or hanging lamps – and yes, one has a little mouse inside a teapot. There is a doggie bed (Ken has a Maltese) with a pillow in the shape of a bone. A metal dog with big round eyes and droopy ears and springs for legs bounce like an excited puppy. Such whimsy characterizes Ken’s designs – but make no mistake, a solid foundation of engineering and structural integrity undergirds each piece to maximize function.

The Yoda and Bloom chairs and Chiquita stool may initially throw you off – can I really sit on it? – but take a seat and you’ll realize how comfortable they actually are, as my 92-year-old cousin Peter found out. By the way, the Yoda chair was used for the heads of economies during the state dinner of the 2015 APEC in Manila. Those chairs – each had a metal tag naming the leader that used it – were auctioned off for charity after APEC.

So parents, guardians, aunts, uncles, kuyas, ates and teachers – tell stories to the kids, pass on our fables and legends, invent adventures, recount family stories. You’ll never know what new life these will take on in the future.