You could use some help from Nicolaas "Nikki" de Lange, president of Designs Ligna, which is no babe in the woods. Coming out of the woodwork at the Designs Ligna furniture exhibit (which ends tomorrow at the Activity Center of Alabang Town Center) is its latest collection – mixed with old reliables – of furniture and accessories.
"It’s furniture made of wood from managed forests," Nikki stresses this hard fact. "We do still offer narra pieces, but we’re pricing them higher than our imported goods because we’re trying to discourage the market from further cutting down trees and depleting our forests."
He adds, "Ligna is Latin for wood, which is what our furniture company is all about. We’ve not deviated from that, but about six or seven years ago, we made an effort to move away from narra and started bringing in maple and cherry from the US and Canada, because those were the top-of-the-line timbers in those countries, which have a very well-managed timber industry, meaning those trees will be replenished and they have more than their demand."
Nikki sure knows his wood, tracing his roots in wooden furniture to a 32-year-old family tradition began by his father, Alfonso Nakpil de Lange, who’s of Dutch ancestry. "My father was the first industrial designer in the Philippines," he says with pride. "He was very good with his hands. He started making furniture for his friends out of the front yard of our old house. That old house on Barbosa, Quiapo is very well-preserved, standing today as an industrial monument."
But little did Nikki think he’d carve a career, nay a niche, in the furniture business. "I finished Interdisciplinary Studies at Ateneo in 1986," he looks back. "I didn’t take any business course but focused more on social anthropology."
Certainly, Nikki’s heart is not made of wood. After college, he joined the Jesuit Volunteers of the Philippines, taught for a year and did mission work in Bukidnon. "It was a great experience being with the JVP – it molded me to be service-oriented, which is basically a big part of our business today," he says with a big smile. "When I came into the company, it was the time it was expanding and my parents, who had been running it for 20 years, were looking for new people to help out. I said, okay, I’d help out for a while. Little did I know, two years later, they’d both go to the US for a vacation and decide not to come back. There are four of us in the family but most of my siblings were busy one way or the other. I was the only one at that time involved in the business so the responsibility fell on my lap."
Stepping into his dad’s awesome shoes was a big job, but Nikki proved himself tougher than hardwood. "With 120 families to provide for in terms of employees, I took it rather seriously," he says. "Fortunately, things are going well. These people have been with us for so long, like 20 years. We have a very good relationship with our people, the union works with us hand in hand. They realize businesses elsewhere are not doing well and we are doing well so they’ve learned to value their work."
Designs Ligna’s crafted works have found their way in markets abroad. Fact is, Design Ligna has been in the export business for the last 19 years.
"We used to export to manufacturers – made products for them, which were assembled, finished and marketed under their name," Nikki points out. "We were supplying six to seven of the top furniture makers in the US. So when you go to Macy’s, for instance, you’d find some of our pieces among its top-of-the-line furniture collection. It was very fulfilling and satisfying to supply the top people in the industry. But it could also be tiring because you’re forever trying to produce products to meet their specifications, their price points. You join all the trade fairs and the buyers would come. They’d say your products are nice, but mas maganda if you could make it like this, change your design, etc. They’ll tell you how much they’re willing to pay for your piece; you’re constantly trying to peddle your products overseas. Then, too, you’re competing with China, Vietnam and Indonesia."
There was a time when 90 percent of Designs Ligna’s business was for the export market and 10 percent for the local market. Today, the opposite is true. "There were many instances in the past that when the export market dropped, we went back to the local market where we started," says Nikki. "And we’ve always been able to bounce back."
Nikki knows the local market only too well. the Heading the chamber of furniture manufacturers in the Philippines for two years, he got to know a lot of people in the business. "I organized the Philippine International Furniture Show, previously run by CITEM, and we’ve been running it for the last five years. Maybe they trusted me and my company so they agreed to put some of their products in my store, and they’re doing very well."
Two years ago, Designs Ligna was just a furniture store. "Then we started accessorizing the stores, made them cozier," Nikki relates. "We wanted to project the sort of lifestyle our customers would typically have in their homes. So we started incorporating lamps, baskets, vases and other accessories to make our look more complete. At the same time, we gave customers great opportunity to find products which they wouldn’t find elsewhere on the local market."
Such beautiful finds Nikki would bring home everytime he went to the province. He recounts, "Initially, we bought all our accessories overseas because we’re high-end and we felt that we had to have high-end accessories to mix with our furniture. But as I started merchandizing more and more locally, I found there was a lot of local products which complemented our products very well. So for instance, our lamps come from Pampanga, our pillows from Cebu and Davao, our candlesticks from Iloilo, our picture frames and coconut decor with pewter from Cebu. These products are made by people I’ve known and met at shows."
Home is where you’ll find a lot of Designs Ligna furniture. "We do mostly homes, with our institutional clients comprising 20 percent of our business," Nikki tells us. "We do banks, restaurants, offices, but our focus is more on high-end furniture. Generally, we do the officers’ furniture. Because we use skilled labor and our quality is higher, we position ourselves in the higher segment of the market."
Designs Ligna has always believed that fine furniture begins with beautiful, well-seasoned wood. Which is why it uses only kiln-dried hardwoods that last a lifetime.
One look at Designs Ligna furniture and you know that only skillful hands, belonging to some of the best artisans in the country, could have crafted them. Hard proof of how proud Designs Ligna is of its artists and craftsmen is the fact that each Designs Ligna furniture piece comes with a five-year warranty.
Say Designs Ligna owners: "Taking our cue from the finest antiques in the world, Designs Ligna furniture is made the traditional, handcrafted way: dowels and glue for the joinery, and dovetailed solid wood drawers. We make all the hardware ourselves. Even the screws are not randomly done. Attention to detail is what Designs Ligna is all about. Our hand-rubbed oil finish protects the wood while giving it a long-lasting sheen and showing off its natural grain. And each piece comes with a free, two-year re-oiling service to keep it looking new. Fifty years hence, your grandchildren will be enjoying their own Designs Ligna antiques."
Truth to tell, says Nikki, "We’ve inherited a lot of second generation customers, children of former customers, who have inherited Designs Ligna pieces and they want either to complete their collection or change the leather because it’s worn-out. We refinish it, make it brand-new so now, they have a new investment piece. Over the weekend, I’ve been talking to so many people who are saying they’ve had our designs for over 25 years, they still love them and they also love our new pieces."
Of course, the home of Nikki and Rosanne de Lange is a veritable showcase of some of the best Designs Ligna has to offer. "But of course, you can’t have just wooden pieces," says Nikki. "So I do have other pieces that came from friends."
We’re pretty sure the de Lange children – Nachi, 9; Angela, 7; Jaime, 5; Gabriel, 3; and Rocio, 1 – would be proud and happy to have their parents’ furniture in their own homes when the time comes.
Designs Ligna furniture designs range from the classic to the contemporary. Can’t decide what to buy? The store personnel, consisting mostly of interior designers, can help you decide which piece would blend well with the pieces you have at home – and with your lifestyle.
Following age-old tradition, Designs Ligna can also be commissioned to create custom-made furniture.
To see more of Designs Ligna designs, visit any of its showrooms (Almeda Arcade, Arnaiz Avenue, Ayala Center, Makati City with tel. nos. 845-30-27 and 28; Interior Center, SM Megamall, Mandaluyong with tel. nos. 634-07-04 and 05) or its factory at 16 First Avenue, Bagumbayan, Taguig, Metro Manila (call 837-28-72 or 79); or e-mail dligna@skyinet.net.
Monday, we catch the last week of Designs Ligna’s exhibit at ATC. Nikki himself gives us a tour of the place and guides us from one stunning piece to the next.
"Right now, I work with Dem Bitantes, who’s a graduate of industrial design and worked with the Design Center of the Philippines for many years," says Nikki. "He’s already a hall of famer in terms of design. His efforts have been focused on the export market. The two of us do the product development for Designs Ligna."
"They like each other," says Nikki’s wife Rosanne, who’s marketing manager of Designs Ligna. "It’s both a friendship and a working relationship."
There are beds galore: stained maple beds (people prefer the dark look now, according to Nikki), the Bali bed in natural maple or walnut color, the Egyptian bed stained to a walnut color and wrapped with rope, the cottage bed in mahogany for your second home by the beach, the twig bed made of small bamboo poles woven together and tied with leather bindings, the crushed bamboo bed from the crushed bamboo collection (which sells well in all continents of the world, says Nikki), and Toti Villalon’s centennial bed.
"All our beds are completely knocked down, just right for apartments, and they come with bed frames, which are our strength," says Nikki.
The beds come dressed up with beautiful linens and pillows.
Tables come in all shapes and sizes: the square dining table (ideal for after-dinner conversation, says Nikki, because it has equilateral sides), the crushed bamboo rectangular table, and the Conran-inspired oval table in maple and veneer with reddish walnut finish (maple in its natural color, says Nikki, breathed new life into the local market when it was introduced because it made homes look younger and brighter).
Then there’s the folding bar, which is a bar topnotcher indeed. "My dad designed it and it’s been one of our bestsellers since the 1970s," says Nikki. "He studied industrial design in the US but he was so nationalistic he didn’t want to stay there."
There are living room showcases that come with lamps, vases and other accessories. Just about everything to make a house truly a home. Proud of Designs Ligna’s personalized service, Nikki will even help you choose the pieces to suit your home. That wood be so nice, woodn’t it?