IT sounded misplaced, quite unbecoming of an “international” show that supposedly saw both connoisseurs and believers of Filipino craftsmanship flying in from half a world away to take in—and take home—our furniture, the design realm from which Filipino Kenneth Cobonpue has emerged as an international luxury brand. But it was posed, time and again, amid a global audience and with a tinge of half-assed pride: “Are we there yet?”
The question was addressed to Mary McDonald and Nathan Turner, two of the titular decorators extraordinaire of Bravo TV’s Million-Dollar Decorators, the hit series that once showed us what’s so wrong about Lindsay Lohan’s nightstand.
They came to this year’s recently concluded Philippines International Furniture Show (PIFS) flanked with the sort of top-of-mind questions you raise starstruck, along with the more servile “What advice can you give aspiring designers?” and “Are you interested in giving us a workshop?”, borne out of an assessment, at once innocuous and desperate, of how far we’ve gone vis-à-vis the benchmark of furniture design.
“You guys are already in the global market,” McDonald said, stressing the exceptional high quality of Filipino furniture and accessories. “I don’t see you as not already there—so, you know, if you’re running to expand around the world, I think it’s up to each company to expand to other countries and bring their Philippine products there.”
Turner added that to be given a chance is all we need, which includes international marketing and exposure with the media and expositions like the PIFS.
A veritable raft of over 200 exhibitors, furniture powerhouses from across the country, were assembled in an upscale mockup of a Filipino neighborhood, according to the moodboard of PIFS Creative Director J. Antonio Mendoza, whose own “The Interior Lifestyle Vignettes” waxed poetic in a seamless fusion of Philippine history and contemporary furniture.
“When we walked the show, there were many products that we had already bought and have been available in our country. Now we got to see the source,” McDonald said. “You brought us here. You’re already manufacturing [furniture and accessories] that are now available and seen around the world.”
The Philippines’s interpretation of world trends through game-changing pieces, according to McDonald, is “an amoeba or something that just has natural flow to it, but the silhouette of it is overscaled and has a bit of geometrics.” There isn’t one formula, so you get the traditional bordering on modern-contemporary-futuristic. “I have to say there is a trend that is growing and still growing—silhouettes that are somewhat organic but modular and futuristic, and, yet, they incorporate something organic,” McDonald said.
The million-dollar decorators milled about to see what they could take home and sealed with their names every done deal. Among them were a leather bench from Prizmic & Brill; mirrors from Obra Cebuana; a bolstered metal cocoon by Ann Pamintuan; a mod hexagonal coffee table from Designs Ligna; and an armchair dangling from a network of ropes by Vito Selma.
“My plan is to use some of these products in my store,” Turner said. “We’re planning to use the companies as among our sources to manufacture things,” McDonald added. Who knows where these “found” objects would end: perhaps in these designers’ next big projects, a Beverly Hills home, or wherever—reaffirming perhaps, once and for all, the “there” in “Are we there yet?”
The million-dollar decorators also shared their aesthetic sensibilities to a small audience of designers, the media and plain hardcore fans.
THE CREATIVE PROCESS, THE CHALLENGES
Mary McDonald: There’s a lot that happens to all of us, such as going overbudget. You learn that anything that can happen to you probably will. Clients start out listening and then, they don’t listen—and it’s very hard to wrangle them back to that state because they start looking at things and telling you about other things they see. You know, it’s your job to find a way to again get them focused on what you had originally intended to do, or else the work could end up looking like a yard sale.
Nathan Turner: Things are always going to be wrong, like always. The fabrics are going to come in with a wrong color, your things show up late, or you have something painted in a wrong color. It’s not about the problems happening, because there’s so many hands involved in the process. It’s about how we handle it. “Okay, this is the problem. What’s the solution?” Trying to figure it out. We’re problem-solvers every day.
McDonald: I personally don’t put all of my looks. I pick one. I listen to the clients which look they like of mine, why they like it, and then I try to steer them away from the other things that they like. I don’t do all the things that I love in one house; I have to edit and focus on my original vision so that the finished space looks complete and tailored.
WARM WORDS FOR FLEDGLING DESIGNERS
McDonald: Try to get a year in the best (design firm), if you are willing to do that. You’ll see how somebody else runs a job and it’s quite invaluable. I’ve never worked for anybody; I did it on my own and it just sort of happened and evolved.
It doesn’t even have to be a year; in six months you can see how it functions as a business and how they deal with clients and how they interface with the problems. Take notes while you’re there. “Oh, this is how this works; this is how a sales tax works.”
Turner: Get as much experience as you can and, creatively speaking, I think that you should play with your own space as much as you can. My store is my sort of laboratory. I’d put orange paint and freak out, “Oh that’s really bad!” and I’d be painting over it all night before the store opens the next day.
McDonald: There’s a lot of things involved that have nothing to do with your vision and getting a client to actually let you create a vision for them. But that is actually a good thing—doing your own space—if you really feel creative. When I was young, I decorated my dorm room in college. I mean, I was willing to do whatever it took when I was very young. I painted an old table so everything was white and brown. I would do whatever it took even on a budget to create a look.
Turner: It’s all about experimenting because you need those hours and years of practice so that you can really feel confident with your own abilities creatively. Play around at home and start there.
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