Meet the furnishing line equivalent of an ‘it’ bag

You’ll know you’ve made it,” a friend once informed me, “when the labels you buy are no longer ‘it’ bags, but high-end home furnishings.”
By “making it,” of course, she means “hitting the motherlode.”
A Birkin may set you back a cool half mil, but the Hermes of kitchens? Expect to pay more — much more.
That’s because Italian modular lines Poliform and Varenna, which launch later this month with a showroom on Nicanor Garcia (across LRI), is what my mom would un-ironically refer to as “fancy.”
Fancy, in this case, isn’t a gilded aesthetic or an amplified sense of grandeur.
Poliform, an Italian company that prides itself on its modern design and high quality, carries a complete range of home furnishings: that means bookcases, free-standing units, complements for the living and night area, wardrobes, beds, kitchens and sofas.
“No one brand at this level can offer the complete package of the house,” says Gaia Spinelli, Poliform export area manager and heir to the company. “We are the only one who can do this — and this is a consequence of 60 years of knowledge, research, and investment. This is impossible to create without decades of experience, tradition, custom, aesthetics, passion — and not just investment.”
One of the label’s strengths is its spirit of collaboration, working with high profile designers like the late Roberto Barbieri, who passed away earlier this year. Barbieri has a prestigious list of accomplishments, designing chairs, partnering with famed architects and exhibiting in august venues like the Triennale of Milan. Jean Marie Massaud, Paola Navone, Carlo Colombo, Vincent Van Duysen, Maricel Wanders are some of Poliform’s collaborators putting a modern spin on their product line.
Sideboards and sleek sofas pay homage to modernism. Its sleek kitchen line Varenna, which falls under the Poliform umbrella, mixes the modern with the new.
“In this day and age, a kitchen is a showpiece, and a beautiful kitchen speaks a lot about the design of the house,” Spinelli explains.
“Varenna lives in a market where there are many German brands, and Varenna is the only Italian kitchen to go international. Given the high technological functions and the very high quality of our kitchens, added with the aesthetic style of the Italians. A German kitchen looks like a kitchen, but a Varenna kitchen looks like a piece of furniture.”
While Varenna has its share of slick stainless steel kitchens, it also boasts white lacquered looks that are playful and bright as well as warm wood modules that manage to vacillate between cozy soothing hues and crisp, streamlined configurations.
Spinelli thinks that the Philippine market is a welcoming one, open to embracing modern design. “We are excited about Poliform here in the Philippines because we view the Asian market now as the most important market in the Philippines. Poliform is mature in Europe and in other countries, and we are now understanding the great potential of the Asian market,” she says. “Our next challenge is to make a fusion with Asian design and culture, and try to collaborate with Asian designers to produce a Poliform collection. We believe that we are moving forward if we are able to do this. We want the Asian market will drive us to the future.”
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The Poliform and Varenna showroom is located at 219 Nicanor Garcia St., Bel-Air 2, Makati. Find out more at www.poliform.it.