For a long time Cobonpue had been wanting to create small objects, but the biggest hurdle was to make them more affordable. He’s succeeded with his new brand, exclusively available at Rustan’s.
It’s the dream of every homeowner who cares about great design to have a Kenneth Cobonpue in their home, but let’s face it: a piece of furniture by the celebrated designer is an investment running from the tens to hundreds of thousands.
So, what if I told you that you could own a Kenneth Cobonpue for as low as P1,450?
No, it’s not a massive clearance sale, but a new brand called KCurated — home accessories, décor and lighting designed by Cobonpue, handmade in Cebu and available first in the Philippines at Rustan’s, as opposed to KC’s large furniture, which are typically released overseas first.
“It’s always the dream of every designer to have your designs everywhere,” Cobonpue says. “It’s a very new brand, so the collections are varied but they’re all very whimsical, which is characteristic of my designs.”
For a long time Cobonpue had been wanting to create small objects, but the biggest hurdle was to make it more affordable. “That’s the reason why most of the things that you see are always made in China of injected plastic — they’re mass-produced,” he notes. “I have a lot of ideas, but sometimes when we make it, it becomes too expensive.”
He had also been trying to work with Rustan’s, but couldn’t find the right formula at first. “And finally we had this brand, and I thought that it was perfect for Rustan’s.”
KCurated offers many useful and desirable objects for the home, and great gifting ideas as well. For pet lovers there’s the Louie pet bed, which features either a plush bone for dogs or a fish for cats: “I made this for my dog, actually, then everybody wanted one,” laughs Cobonpue, who’s fur dad to a Maltese and a Schnauzer. “The great thing about this is you can take the cover off and wash it.”
When Kenneth was a child, his mom, Betty, a designer who taught him everything he knows, would read him bedtime stories, which sparked his imagination and sense of whimsy. “Back then there was no Netflix or YouTube, so you had to imagine everything,” he says. “And I think that process where she read me stories and I was trying to imagine things — that made my imagination very active until today.”
That fertile imagination is evident in pieces like his Amelia Trinket Stand, where you can hang your jewelry from the beaks of porcelain birds. “There’s an island off Cebu called Olango where all the birds do their yearly migration from Europe to Africa. They stop there,” KC explains about his inspiration.
Let there be lamps
I love the Cat and Pup with the Hat table lamps, rendered in arresting black and white. Pull on a tiny bone and the dog lamp lights up, while the cat lamp has a cunning little mouse pull.
Another striking KCurated design is colored mesh lanterns with animals inside them, like the red Tweet and blue Bubble lanterns holding a bird and goldfish, respectively. This happens to be Kenneth’s favorite collection. “This is very new. They’re all wireless, rechargeable, portable lamps that you put in the garden, or outside. We just presented them in Milan in April, and they were quite a hit.”
There are also candle warmers called Wick: “It creates very beautiful shadows on the wall and on the desk,” notes Cobonpue.
One of his classic designs, Little People, has been converted into a table lamp that is KCurated’s most expensive piece at P28,000. Everything else costs less — the average price is under P10,000. Another lamp was inspired by bulol — part of a line of rattan-and-steel lamps called Diwa.
Tabletop accessories
For the dining table there’s the Haw Haw coffee set, inspired by the Filipino folk song Pen Pen de Sarapen because it’s a wooden carabao tray that can hold milk, sugar and a brass spoon.
A wine holder called Shuttle is fashioned like a miniature rocket-launching pad with people working on the scaffolding around your vino, while the Antsy Emma Cake Holder is a two-tiered cake tray with the lower tier designed to hold water to keep ants away. “This is quite Filipino, actually,” notes Kenneth. “We always have to explain it to other countries.”
Even so, he’s always tried to incorporate Filipino traditions into his designs. “I’ve always done that also for the furniture, the traditions that we grew up with and practices that are uniquely ours.”
Baskets called Nest Bowls are a prime example of sustainability, because they’re made from upcycled polyethylene from Cobonpue’s workshop. “We had a lot of these lying on the floor because we use these to weave our furniture, and then they started to make simple baskets out of these materials.”
But it’s perhaps the small-scale Bloom, Yoda, Dragnet and Pigalle chairs that best distill Kenneth Cobonpue’s essence in miniature. “People were always wanting them, especially students on field trips,” he says. “And when they come, they want to bring home something but they can’t bring home a chair, so we made those actually for them.”
Even if I’m far past my student days, now even I can say I have a Kenneth Cobonpue chair in my home.
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KCurated is exclusively available on the fourth level of Rustan’s Makati.