Ito Kish wins at Manila Fame

In everything he designs, he wants his pieces to represent who he is as a Filipino. On Thursday, March 15, design consultant and now furniture designer Ito Kish put vintage Filipino houses — specifically their wooden balusters or ventanillas — back in the consciousness of design aficionados.

For the first time in his more than two decades of visual merchandising, retailing and design consultancy, Kish joined an exhibition and he chose the perfect venue to showcase his first furniture collection called Gregoria: Manila Fame, ongoing until today, March 17, at SMX Convention Center in the Mall of Asia complex.

In his first participation ever at Manila FAME, Kish’s booth won Best Design and his Gregoria two-seater won Best Product Design for Furniture, ending a dry spell for such award (there was no winner last year).

Detail of the Gregoria loveseat

How does he feel? “It’s crazy. I was hoping for at least a nomination for Best Booth but had no expectation for Best Furniture Design. He is elated, of course, but late Thursday afternoon while waiting for the results, he texted me, “This is some scary shit!”

Anyone who has known Kish — or his work and his store — and followed his career through the years would not have been surprised by his double win. After all, he has styled and accessorized some of the most quietly beautiful homes in the country. He has done condominium units, old houses turned modern, minimalist and contemporary homes. He has also done work for Amanpulo in Palawan, for Globe Telecom and Ayala Land.

His winning piece, Gregoria, is in keeping with his design philosophy. He wanted to create pieces of furniture that would be identified as Filipino. Think of those vintage houses sitting side by side on Vigan’s cobblestone streets, those balustrades that used to be in every house from here to eternity. “I think it is important that the pieces have a clear identity,” he says. “I want to be inspired by all things Filipino. My works will express my belief in local materials and craftsmanship that are distinctly Filipino, thus paying tribute to my rich heritage. I do not want to be different and lose my identity.”

Ito Kish in the Gregoria chair: Putting vintage Filipino houses back in the consciousness of design aficionados.

Though his calendar is packed with consulting and running his eponymous home store on Nicanor Garcia Avenue in Makati, Kish decided to go into furniture design for a very simple and humbling reason.

The winning piece at Manila Fame: Two-seater Gregoria chair, which Kish named after his mother, and a design that is almost liturgical, something that looks as though it belongs inside a Gothic cathedral but would look as wonderful in a sparsely furnished space.

“I was itching to do something else to challenge myself. So I decided to do product development as an option. A friend told me that her interior design professor discouraged her students to intern in my office because I did not study interior design and I am not licensed despite my history of work in the last 20 years. Interestingly, her students can intern in my office for furniture design.”

Ironically, he was not a furniture designer before Manila Fame.

“I have no portfolio for that. Several times I have ripped off pages from design magazines and showed manufacturers how I want that furniture modified to my requirements, but I don’t count that as designing furniture. The teacher was so clueless about what I do. I have done more than 25 projects in the last seven years and they do not want to allow a student to intern with me because I am not licensed or a graduate of interior design. Sad. So when I accepted a student for internship for furniture design I accepted her for the simple reason I needed an extra hand with the petty things that I think my senior designers shouldn’t be bothered with.”

One afternoon, the intern asked him which furniture pieces in his store had he designed. “I was dumbfounded because I had nothing I could be proud of that I designed. With that in mind, I decided to do product development so as not to embarrass myself in front of an intern if asked which furniture I designed.”

Concesa commode: He named the pieces after his mother and her five sisters “who were all part of that beautiful era of the Philippines where tradition and culture were in the frontline.”

His next step was to figure out what kind of collection he wanted to do. While well-versed in contemporary design, he didn’t want to do “cutting edge designs where a chair looks like a spaceship. I counted out being innovative or whatever it really means because the word ‘innovative’ is so big. I would not try to claim to be original because nothing out there is an original anymore. Everything is either an improvement of something that is existing, a combination of two concepts or a copy. So I said I will do something that will be identified as Pinoy.”

Thus was born Gregoria, a chair named after his mother, and a design that is almost liturgical, something that looks as though it belongs inside a Gothic cathedral but would look as wonderful in a sparsely furnished space. Its curving backrest is composed of several balustrades of different heights, it has a wood-bordered woven seat, and the legs look as if they’re supporting the seat en pointe.

“From its humble beginnings as seating and storage, to ventanillas that allow air to flow in and out of the homes Filipinos grew up in, to decorative details in staircases, the baluster is an icon in Philippine lifestyle. I want to give it a new twist to be appreciated by a new generation.”

Francesca cabinet with two options for the inside — toile and blue

It took a year to complete the six-piece collection (six designs, with one design having a one- and two-seater pieces).

“The collection is a mix of approaches — from a very simple treatment to a more technical one (making sure the console tables and bookshelves would stand) to a dramatic presentation. I also decided to name all of them after my mother and her five sisters: Gregoria, Concesa, Flora, Francesca, Romana and Elpidia who were all part of that beautiful era of the Philippines where tradition and culture were in the frontline.”

Kish decided to debut his collection — and his new career as a furniture designer — at Manila Fame. “My love affair with Manila Fame goes a long way and started when I used to visit the PICC just to look around for inspiration. That was in the mid ‘80s. When I moved to Jakarta, I did buying trips for Matahari to find materials that could be used as props for visual merchandising. Through the years I have attended up to the time it was being held at the World Trade Center then at SMX. I was even a judge for the Katha Awards when it was at the World Trade Center.”

Thursday was a big day for Kish. His mother, Gregoria, who was patient with him as a child who would paste gift wrappers to the walls in an attempt to wallpaper their home, has been immortalized and honored with a chair — and an award.