From Chagall to St. Laurent
MANILA, Philippines - There are trade shows and there are trade shows. Af-ter seeing so many for two seasons every year for the past decade, it becomes more difficult to approach one with a fresh eye and spirit. So when CITEM’s Rhea Matute asked us to judge the Katha Awards for this season’s edition of Manila FAME International, we had to once again recondition ourselves to tackling this show like it was our first.
How do you single out a product for excellence in creation (the name and inspiration of the award)? The guidelines seemed simple enough: originality, innovativeness, workmanship and functionality. But in an international setting, creation nowadays is quite a formidable task, a challenge that the show’s participants have to face every season in the wake of heightened competition from other trade fairs in the region. FAME, of course, has the pedigree, being the second longest-running show of its kind in the Asia Pacific region.
The theme of the current show is “Evolution,” which is quite appropriate even for us on a personal note as we have grown with the show through the years, acted as merchandise consultants, and continue to source and collaborate with exporters. Each season is greeted with anticipation, searching for the next big thing as well as checking out how the established ones have reached new levels of innovation and refinement.
Katha Award for holiday décor: Philippine Fine Craft’s eco-friendly animal figures in biodegradable abaca bristles and seeds CITEM’s FAME show. Photos courtesy of CITEMOur first stop was the Holiday Décor section, which to the jaded eye can tend to look like just a mass of glitter, cookie- cutter ornaments, and resin Nativity sets. So what a surprise for us to find soft, tactile angels in handpainted stuffed canvas, something we’ve never seen before. The figures were reminiscent of Chagall figures that floated in his celestial canvases but had a nostalgic charm that brings all the warm thoughts that Christmas is associated with. And the fact that you want to touch them for a reassuring squeeze makes them all right for the holidays in any part of the world.
Next came a table filled with the most adorable handpainted figures: marching band members with cymbals, trumpets and horns, all atop a drum; the three kings and a choir of angels. Standard Christmas subjects, really, till we realized they were made from bowling pins! “My inspiration was actually the Russian matryoshka dolls that I found so pretty,” related Salvacion Novero of Sally’s Crafts, based in Los Baños, Laguna. “I said to myself, I could do something as good as that! Then I was inspired by the shape of the bowling pin and its curves so I thought, why not make them into Christmas dolls?’”
Pauline Juan, editor of Preview magazine and another KATHA judge, had finds that we missed. There was a Nativity set carved out of light wood in a cubist style. Very spare and modern for those who want their holidays without the frills and glitter. The ornaments she found also turned out to be the winner for holiday decor: animal ornaments by Philippine Fine Crafts in eco-friendly, abaca bristles, biodegradable down to the seed eye details. Never did Christmas with a conscience look this gorgeous. Architect Joey Yupangco, another judge, discovered a product that won a special citation: Team International’s nifty “Make Your Own Card Kits,” which makes holiday cards more personal with the creativity and touch of the hand of the giver.
Home furniture and decoration, which has the most number of participants was harder to navigate with all the choices. But together with Joey Yupangco, we were unanimous in choosing as winner the wire hanging lamps of Wataru Sakuma done in collaboration with Celia Jiao of Kalikasan Crafts. The lamps had a fresh, new shape like a computer-generated, angular version of crumpled paper. It turns out that the Japanese designer with a fine arts background has been the design star for the past two seasons, winning awards for products he has designed for various exporters.
He also designed a red armchair and beige stools in tinalak fiber for Tadeco, which look like spools of ribbons ready to be unwound. The wonderful thing is that they sit well, giving a nice, resilient bounce. His special setting tea-house and booth for Masa Ecological Development were also nominees for booth design with their clean lines of coco lumber structures and walls of crystal-patterned cut-out paper made from lumber sawdust.
Highly commendable as well and winner of a Katha citation was Arden Classic’s line of table accoutrements using shells and ostrich eggs with silver-plated cast brass using the tedious lost wax method. In the spirit of Renaissance and Baroque kunstkammer pieces, like those in the collection of Yves St. Laurent, these jewels are definite collectibles. We saw similar pieces at Lane Crawford, which happens to be Arden’s client. “I was always attracted to these pieces that I would see at museums in Europe like the Hermitage in St. Petersburg and decided to develop my own,” relates proprietor Jen Siarot. We remember her pieces when she just opened a few years ago in Cebu. There were coco shell bowls with cast legs in simple scroll patterns available at hotel boutiques. Now she’s definitely in the big league with very intricate pieces that have reached a whole new level of refinement. Good news is that she’s opening a store soon at Greenbelt 5! 
The winner for booth design went to Mind Masters, designed by Tess Pasola, who must be one of the Philippines’ most talented and prolific product designers. Aside from her now iconic and heavily-copied James Bound series of vases and bowls made from bound book leaf paper which she designed for her own company, she has created for other companies many other objects which you will find in the best design stores around the world. Using a backdrop of corrugated galvanized iron, she had colorful, graphic message boards appliquéd with photoprinted tarpauline. There was the riot of comics patterns, yet the look was so controlled with the squares neatly lining the walls. For furniture, there were witty rectangular block tables with tarpaulin covers that had prints of the dining china and cutlery.
In the fashion section, Mich Dulce, wearing one of her fabulous hats, giddily related her meeting English punk rock icon Adam Ant. Her training in London and quirky design sense have made her hats and corsets the most covetable fashion pieces. For this show, she had chic hats in bright tinalak displayed on “Bambi” hat stands. Nearby, we discovered a new variation on the recycled juice packets: Strips were bundled together and belted to create the bilbil bags, reminding you to go on a diet to get rid of your muffin top waist. Joey Yupangco found bags made of multicolored plastic bottle caps which were punctured to give an op-art pattern. Emi Jorge exhibited the most beautiful minaudieres in kamagong, shell, and mother-of- pearl with handsculpted details like octopus tentacles. Pauline Juan was fascinated with a bag made from tinalak woven by a T’boli of Lake Sebu in Mindanao. What was most unusual was that it was in a new color combination and weave which isn’t normally done without sanction from one’s ancestors.
How does the weaver know that her ancestors are displeased? She gets sick.
So far, this particular weaver was all right, which means her ancestors are fine with her fashion innovation.
