Let’s play & display
September 8, 2001 | 12:00am
Now, which is the most nonchalant chair to be discovered in? Let’s see. Boy Abunda sits on a red one for Private Conversations. Martin has the loveseat on Late Night with Martin. Korina Sanchez and Cito Beltran have their own single chairs on Issue 101. And Kris Aquino uses one for Kris & Tell.
A chair isn’t just a chair. Definitely not if it’s from Play & Display. After Boy Abunda’s red chair first appeared on TV, executive producers of sitcoms and talk shows started calling them up for sponsorship and ex deals.
Play & Display follows the philosophy that furniture should be as functional as it is fun – and sometimes colorful. Like a chair just begging to be used. Ah, the derriere never felt better on foam.
The name of the store says it all, after all. When the owners of Play & Display were deliberating on what to name their store, they agreed they didn’t want to use the trite old names that started with words like "home," "house," "furniture," making it impossible to mistake the store for anything else.
"We wanted a name that was very catchy and which would highlight the image we wanted to project: fun, functional and nice to look at, like a display," says Geena Llamanzares, general manager of Play & Display.
And so when the first branch opened at Glorietta 4 (they will have 13 by yearend), it took the idea of what furniture pieces should be and threw it out the window by importing pieces that were colorful in a time when minimalism and neutral colors were at their most popular.
Geena explains that the business started as a wholesale enterprise. She and a group of partners used to import furniture pieces and sell them to department stores. But even before that, visitors to their homes would be buying off their own pieces. So when they were offered space in a mall, they agreed that they would only get pieces that they themselves would like to use. After all, judging form their own homes and the response these got from friends, they knew they were on the right track.
Shoppers snapped up the pieces in the first three months like there was no tomorrow. This in 1997, right smack in the beginning of the economic crisis. Surprisingly, it wasn’t just the young set that bought their furniture. Geena relates that even 65-year-old grandmothers are buying red loveseats to mix with yellow sofas. "The generations are now different. Even the older ones are tired of the heavy wooden furniture and classic designs. The economic classes and ages of our clientele are very broad. We’re not limited to just the young market."
Play & Display offers furniture collections in medium density fiber board (MDF) for the living room (sofas, coffee tables, side tables, consoles, love seats and single chairs), bedroom (dressers, beds, night tables, and those wonderful wardrobes) and dining room (chairs and tables, cabinets and cupboards). Those who have had a horrible experience with pieces made of MDF (like this writer who bought a chest of drawers in another store and lasted all of two years) need not worry. Geena explains that the ones Play & Display has are made using the best technology from Denmark and Belgium. "There are different grades of MDF," she says. "Our merchandise are of the highest grade and quality. The advantage of MDF-made pieces is that they are lighter in weight compared to real wood."
Most of their pieces come from Italy, Denmark, Belgium, Germany, Mexico and Thailand.
The store also carries accessories, such as hanging and tabletop lamps from Italy; glass vases from Mexico; handmade throws and bed spreads from India – some of them so delicate they have glass beads and embroidery on them, which may lead one to ask, how do you wash it? (the answer: dry cleaning, my friend).
The accessories, in keeping with the furniture style, are all modern. You will not find shiny surfaces on them. They are mostly champagne-finish metal with clean lines.
Apart from their signature colorful lines, the store now has more minimalist pieces, mostly dining tables and chairs.
So with all these diverse collections, how does one coordinate the look of the room? It’s actually easy since Play & Display showrooms are arranged the way pieces would look in your own house. What makes it all the more easy for you to choose is that even though the colors range from different palettes, the styles are so similar that one can pick a loveseat from one collection and mix it with a three-seater sofa from another and a coffee table from yet another line. The pieces look like one big collection but actually they come from all over the world.
"Anything nice we bring it in. At least our clients will have variety, that’s our aim."
Color, of course, is what put Play & Display on the map. At least for me, if I see a colorful chair with matte-finish metal legs, I immediately think of the store, even though some home shops have followed suit.
Colors are divided into three categories. They have the bright shades like orange, yellow, red and royal blue; the neutral and pastel colors like cream, light blue and light green; and the dark colors like gray, burgundy and black.
So is it good to color-coordinate a room, make it all yellow or all red? Geena says, "It depends if it’s a small room or a big one. It depends on the image you want to achieve. Sometimes it could be all white and then you have a red sofa. Sometimes you want to break the whiteness of the entire room, you want to create contrast with black or multi-colored chairs. Sometimes, you think multi-color won’t work but then it does."
The bottom line is that anything goes if you know how to put the look together. If you don’t – well, there are always the in-house interior designers of Play & Display (for which you need to make an appointment for consultation).
Geena says that while she does not have a background in interior design, her education comes from years of traveling to the design capitals of the world. It also helps that as an accounting graduate of the University of the Philippines (she graduated with magna cum laude honors), she knows a lot about costing and how to run a business successfully.
"I always put myself in the client’s shoes. If I feel good sitting in a chair, if I feel good having it in the house, then I should be able to afford it. We look for suppliers who give us reasonable prices. We don’t get pieces with ridiculous prices, not matter how nice they are. A piece of furniture should be very comfortable, stylish and affordable."
A workaholic, Geena started as an entrepreneur at a young age. She’d buy chocolates and clothing and then sell them to friends and classmates. "My mother had this department store when we were small so we’d help in the business. I’d be the tindera and the cashier. I didn’t want to ask from my parents because I felt good if I made my own money. I’m matiyaga when it comes to selling."
A fashion model during her student days, Geena says that when one has the inclination toward fashion, a stylish house is not far behind. "The owners’ taste and personality are always reflected in their business."
And for that, we are thankful that Geena Llamanzares is hyper and fun. "I like spice in life and variety. I easily get bored. I like constant change."
These, obviously, are what Play & Display is all about.
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