If the recently held Manila F.A.M.E. International is any indication of design trends in furniture and home accessories, then the use of natural materials continues to be in vogue. Save for a few collections done in resin, glass, wrought iron, and metal, most of the pieces showcased the range of indigenous and renewable materials available in the country such as wicker, abaca, raffia, rattan, vines, nito, and capiz shells. Aside from this, the show also featured a lot of products using recycled materials, including old newspapers, tahong shells, wood shavings, and coconut chips — proof of the Filipino’s unparalleled ingenuity.
But this isn’t the first time that the Center for International Trade Expositions and Missions (CITEM), organizer of the bi-annual event, is doing something of this nature. In fact, Manila F.A.M.E. International was perhaps the first show in Asia to introduce the concept of recycling, way before “going green” became a buzzword in the international design community.
Oh Scrap!
Giving scrap and other odds and ends a new lease on life are Tes Pasola and Al Caronan, this edition’s design consultants for home furnishings and holiday decor, respectively. (Overall creative director was Milo Naval, who helped both consultants put the show together.)
Tes’ spectacular special setting used 4,000 kilos of old newspapers (partly donated by The Philippine Star), which were die-cut into thousands of donut-shaped pieces, and painstakingly placed one-by-one around curvy circular metal tubes.
“The concept behind it is a forest, done in a very allegorical way. I wanted to show people of our efforts to help the environment,” says Tes who also collaborated with several manufacturers in transforming discarded materials into unique home objects.
Like Tes, Al Caronan also created new products using natural and recycled materials in collaboration with local manufacturers from the holiday decor sector. His setting, which also had forest as theme, used discarded wood that was painted immaculate white.
“This is my contemporary take on traditional Christmas decor,” explains Al who used seagrass, sinamay, capiz shells, and interestingly, corrugated paper and plywood to create interesting ornaments for the holidays. “I wanted to show something that hasn’t been done before, thus the decor using corrugated paper and plywood,” says Al who really showed what a lot of creativity and imagination could do.
Green-Minded
Most of the exhibitors also turned green by using a lot of discarded materials. Among them are Emy Cuenca of Topmark, who showcased home decor using crushed tahong (mussel) shells, and Nature’s Legacy, which transformed wood chips into gorgeous furniture and houseware, while Passad glued together small pieces of wood to produce unique furniture and accent pieces.
Tes is proud to say that a lot of local manufacturers have been recycling for the longest time, and creating new products out of surplus materials. “But this time, we also have to be more conscious of using sustainable methods and environment-friendly processes, and exploring other ways of producing world-class products the green way.”
Says Rhea Matute, deputy executive director for Operations Group of CITEM, “We’re actually partnering with a foreign consultancy group to help our manufacturers explore new and better ways to create products economically without neglecting the environment and the design process.”
That said, people can only expect more innovative products in CITEM’s 25th anniversary show in October.