A very Kish-mas home

The last time I was at Kish, most of the store’s pieces were in neutral colors, black and white. Now, the colors of the holidays have arrived, but it’s not your usual flat green and red, and it’s not Christmas 2001-style whatever that is.

Rather, it’s a little of everything of the past 30 years. The colors are from India’s spices, from the film interpretation of France’s Moulin Rouge, from the east’s exotic colors. And let’s not forget another theme at Kish: ‘70s psychedelia in America and 2001’s adaptation of that era via Lenny Kravitz’s LA home. With his knack of mixing design periods and styles, owner Ito Kish combines all this with award-winning modern pieces: gift items that are both conversation and museum pieces, furniture pieces that will suit the biggest of homes and the smallest of shoe box condo units.

Surrounded by the store’s pieces, you can either put on Jerry Garcia on your old turntable, slip on a muumuu and smoke whatever they did back then; or you can sit in your Zen room (lotus position preferably) and have a cappuccino in your museum piece cup and saucer. "Darling, would you like me to refill your Good Design awardee cup?" (Don’t you dare call it a mug!)

What makes the present incarnation of the store delightful ("we like to evolve," the guy says, as if he was describing the evolution of crocs) is that its pieces fit into any lifestyle and design preference. For people with minimalist homes, the white, gray and sand collections and the straight, geometric forms of the furnishings are just the right stuff. While for people who just cannot edit their clutter, these pieces lend their homes a little – well, dignity and cleanliness if you will, like saying, "we may be cluttered but we do have taste, you know."

Let’s not forget the sense of humor injected in these designs. Ito Kish shows us magnetic multi-color bottle openers in the shape of shark’s fin. A cup and saucer called Cupple, "soon to be a classic design," he says. Ceramic white vases that double as candleholders when turned upside down. A hanging lamp the shape of lymphocyte. A sofa the color of hemoglobin. Glass vases with ‘70s patterns and colors.

Ito’s favorite piece is the award-winning salt and pepper shaker by Propaganda of Thailand, a company that’s making a name for itself in design competitions abroad. "This company is concentrating on more mature lines; they used to do a lot of kitsch pieces. Now they’re competing abroad and joining trade exhibits and becoming more international." Propaganda’s salt and pepper shaker is practically a museum piece, having won the Good Design award last year at the Chicago Athenaeum Museum for Architecture and Design, and is on permanent exhibit there. It may be pricey at P2,500 (I’ll say!) but Kish says it’s sure to be a conversation piece. Ha! What if you wanted to have a quiet dinner?

So why this new tendency to add color (there were no purples, oranges, violets, rust and reds before, you know; just the obligatory candles and lavender leather boxes)? "Kish is a very neutral name," says Ito. "It doesn’t mean traditional, it doesn’t mean modern, it doesn’t mean shabby chic. So we basically wanted to diversify the merchandise but not change the style of the store."

Kish explains that even for homes with a white theme, adding color in as accent would never hurt. "One can bring out the festive colors by putting vases together on the dining table, lighting this centerpiece with a bundle of small lights and candles."

Even the Christmas lights are different, they’re not the usual red and green tivoli lights, but are these little pearl lights in white, fuchsia and tan. Ito points out that the pearl lights are not exactly disposable like the tivoli lights.

"It’s Christmas but it’s not gaudy," he emphasizes. "These bold colors are very hot right now, very hot, and I think they will cross over until summer next year."

Aside from the gift items, Kish just came up with a new collection of furniture, some of them imported from Indonesia, some of them made locally. "Our furniture pieces may be a little pricier than the mid-market range, but we pride ourselves on the quality of the pieces. That’s what sets us apart," he says.

People straying into the store without a clue of what they want are helped by Kish’s staff members, most of them interior design and architecture graduates. "We ask the customers if they live in a condo or a house, if they have kids or not. If they have kids, we suggest that they use leatherette which can withstand heavy traffic. Some of the customers don’t know what’s right for them. Our strength is that our staff can help people decide on what they need. We don’t suggest some materials to some designs because they don’t fit. We try to give our clients the proper information so they can decide on that basis because I think that’s important."

Now if only they would sell that cat in the picture.