IF you love to go shopping—whether to actually buy or just browse—but you didn’t visit the recent Manila Fame (Furnishings and Apparel Manufacturers’ Exchange), then you missed a lifetime opportunity to digest in a few days what’s happening to the ever-varied, ever-fascinating world of local design with an export-oriented and global mind-set.
Thankfully, another edition is coming next March. But that may be a little bit too late. Merchandise orders have begun tallying to as much as the projected $25-million goal, which seems easily realized by the trade fair.
Famously known as the country’s premier design and lifestyle event, Manila FAME, a brainchild of the Center for International Trade Expositions and Missions (Citem), once again unveiled the modern Filipino’s penchant for creative design and styling as it brought together promising talent, seasoned artisans, anxious buyers and curious style watchers all under one roof in its 60th biannual edition from October 16 to 19 at the SMX Convention Center, SM Mall of Asia Complex in Pasay City.
This edition of Manila FAME featured various design directions under a democratic and free-market banner that was heralded by Budji Layug no less as creative director. Layug gave marching orders that diverse design viewpoints from both veteran stakeholders and new participants would be given free reign.
In terms of design for space and habitats, Manila FAME was an eye-opener for various reasons. In Kenneth Cobonpue’s project, we saw the designer making use of themes that will prove to be big in the coming months. Cobonpue has data-mined the directions where the avant-garde and the stylish flock will follow. His themes largely center on a playful, surreal mix of influences. His living room collection echoes luxurious, yet down-to-earth, desires symbolized by motifs of a dessert wilderness, provoking the onlooker to take charge of his own design horizon while also tapping the designer’s provocative choices. Cobonpue has mixed Western Americana motifs in his collection. Dark blue denim covers his sofa and armchairs, provoking the semiotic realization that the cowboy denim has, if not fashion-wise, also conquered the world.
Meanwhile, the Cebu-based designer offsets his new mantra of “Blue is the new black” by utilizing the complementary color of yellow-orange, which, through a mark of genius, found its way on the display floor through chairs covered in rattan and topped with resin antlers.
Great designers know their basics. Blue was complemented by the yellow-orange of rattan. It also seems very timely that Cobonpue hit on the theme of Western Americana, since cowboy chic is making a big comeback internationally.
As for new visions in space utilization, Manila FAME ushered in a next generation of Philippine design talents. The Red Box Home Scenography, a sector that features wunderkinds, paved the way for visitors to see ideas by Rachelle Dagñalan, Lilianna Manahan, Leeroy New and Joseph Rastrullo.
Among the young ones, there seems to be a predilection for the unstoppable artistic vision of Leeroy New, whose skills in appropriating materials have conjured a totally distinct environment. New created a wall installation of cardboard bioforms, looking like cellular matrices in search of order.
There were many other inspiring ideas in the recently concluded Manila FAME, which was aimed at positioning the Philippines as an ideal sourcing hub of finely crafted products for the local and global market. Through this biannual event, Citem intends to solidify the image of “the Filipinos’ artistry and design ingenuity in the global community,” said Rosvi Gaetos, executive director of Citem.
Manila FAME is one of the longest-running trade shows in the region and is the sole trade event in the country approved by the Union des Foires Internationales, an organization of the world’s leading trade show organizers and fairground owners, as well as the major associations of the exhibition industry.
Image credits: Manila Fame