Filipino designers contribute to India's handicrafts industry

NEW DELHI, INDIA — The Taste And Skills of Filipino Designers are blending beautifully with the Indians’ as evidenced by the handicrafts showcased during the recently concluded 32nd India Handicrafts and Gifts Fair, an event that promoted Indian products to the world, including the Philippines.

Twelve Filipino designers led by Rene Baloloy are now working for the Export Promotion Council for Handicraft (EPCH), doing product designs on furniture, gifts, metal craft, glassware, fashion accessories, table linens, and home textile.

“We also do graphic designs, booth and exhibition designing, showroom and store designs, visual merchandising, and periodic trend presentation in different places of India. We also have 11 Indian designers working with us on all these accounts,” Baloloy told The STAR. Baloloy is more known here by his nickname Ener.

An Indian exporter displays his elegant and intricately woven carpets.

Just like other Filipinos working abroad, Baloloy is proud of his being a Filipino, his contribution to the Indian handicrafts industry giving pride to the Philippines. “We are really proud to be Pinoys,” he said.

Baloloy manages the design department of the center with an Indian assistant, who also works as a coordinator to ensure that Indian handicrafts are appreciated worldwide.

Baloloy and his team are involved in planning, organizing and executing the Indian handicrafts presented during the IHGF that is held twice a year — in February and October. The event has attracted importers from across the world.

“With regards to designs for handicrafts, we go by the current trends and forecasts.

These forecasts come from international trend forecasters and we share these to all the exporters, artisans and crafts organizations,” Baloloy said. Baloloy’s name and his being a Filipino were mentioned on an article in the EPCH magazine entitled “Color Trends and Forecasts-Spring/ Summer 2012.”

“The color trends and forecasts are usually just guides for the exporters. We are also guided by these trends and we apply the same to our work. The theme we use for the exhibitions are not necessarily from the trends, but of course there are colors and patterns that are associated with every season. We also use patterns or prints that are related or that describe India, like elephant, peacock, paisley etc.,” Baloloy said.

Baloloy fi nished Drafting Technology (general drafting and design) from the Technological University of the Philippines (TUP) in 1980.

“A month before graduation, I was already working with The Galleon Shop. Then I took B.S. Architecture (also in TUP) but I transferred to MLQU (Manuel L. Quezon University) on my fourth year,” Baloloy recalled. “But because I was forced to decide between work and school, I stopped on my fi fth year and worked as a full-time designer with The Galleon Shop/ Chrysara in 1986.”

Baloloy recounted that he started going to India in 2004 as consultant for the Northeast East Region (NER) project of the PJ Aranador Design Studio.

“Then I was given an assignment to work at the woodcraft industry cluster in Saharanpur, Uttar Pradesh for their Technology Up-gradation Project,” he said. With that, he stayed in India for almost a year working with woodcraft exporters and artisans until 2005.

He returned to the Philippines and worked as a freelance designer for two years, while still working as offshore designer for EPCH and the National Center for Design and Product Development (NCDPD).

In 2007, Baloloy said the NCDPD started building up its manpower and required a team of Filipino designers.

“Since then, from a team of five Filipino designers, there are 12 in-house Filipino designers now in the center doing product designs on furniture, gifts, metal craft, glassware, fashion accessories, table linens and home textile,” Baloloy said.

Baloloy said English is widely used in India “so, usually we don’t have that language problem, except with the artisans, with whom we require Indian interpreters.”

He added that the Indian designers the center is hiring are usually fresh design graduates.

“They still go through all the orientation and handson training with the Filipino designers. Most of them are into soft goods, while the Filipinos work mostly with designs on hard goods. Although the Filipinos most of the time do both.”

“We infuse and introduce to the handicrafts industry modern, contemporary designs but still taking into consideration their techniques and traditional ways of doing things,” he added.

In some craft clusters, Baloloy said there is still some degree of resistance into going modern. “The traditional way of doing their crafts still prevails. It is understandable though because like any other culture, the traditional crafts are revived and preserved. We still guide them on current trends.”

Humble beginnings

According to Baloloy, he started as a product artist in the Philippines in 1980 until 1990 for a retail store called The Galleon Shop which had eight branches in fi ve-star hotels and owned by former Ballet Philippines artistic director Alice Reyes.

“When the company went into the handicrafts export business under the name Chrysara, I became one of the in-house designers with PJ Aranador, now a well-known international lifestyle designer, who was the design manager then,” he added.

When PJ left the company, Baloloy said he was promoted to take over the management of the design department and later on became the vice president for design of Chrysara for 14 years. “So all in all, I worked for the company for 24 years.

In 2004, I just wanted to take a long leave from the company but I decided to resign. It was then when Aranador offered me this job of working with him here in India,” he added. Baloloy’s tip to aspiring designers is to simply love what they do.

“Anywhere you work whether there in the Philippines or abroad, if you love what you are doing, it feels like you are not working. It is just like doing your hobby or playing,” he said.

“The best thing with designing is you are doing the fun part of conceptualizing, creating new designs as well as experimenting on materials, finishes, shapes and styles. What is more satisfying is when you see the prototypes or actual products coming into life from your paper drawings,” he added.

Baloloy pointed out that Filipinos are natural workers in any line of industry. “We are creative and industrious by nature. As long as you have the talent and a good foundation as well as training there, you can excel in your fi eld outside the country, in foreign lands.”

“What PJ (Aranador) started here in India, is a continuing proof that the rest of us Filipino designers here in the design center are really worldclass, and the handicraft sector here in India is experiencing that,” he said. “This is the Filipino contribution to the world of commercial arts and crafts.

We are working here proud to be Pinoys.”

Although the Indians have traits similar to the Filipinos and have good international schools, Baloloy said his wife and 11-year-old daughter stay in the Philippines to avoid a major adjustment in their child’s education.

“Once in a while, homesickness sets in but you know how OFWs fi nd ways to overcome this just to earn a living for their family. Plus, modern technology makes life a little bit easier for communication,” he said.