Crafted by hand & made with a soul, Philippine products shine at AmbienTE

For five days in February, in 11 multi-story halls at Messe Frankfurt, 4,500 of the world’s consumer goods producers from 96 countries gathered together to show their products to 150,000 buyers representing home furnishing chains and retailers around the world.

Some of the manufacturers are huge and known globally, while some are micro companies with fewer than 10 people under their employ.

This is how wide the range of exhibitors is, so imagine the range of their products!

“Frankfurt is where the trade fair started more than 850 years ago,” says Wilbert Novero, general manager of WE-Link, the sales partner of Messe Frankfurt in the Philippines and a division of Global-Link Exhibitions Specialist (Global-Link ESI), a company engaged in organizing, managing, and holding exhibits, special events, business-to-business activities, conventions and trade missions in the Philippines.

Wilbert and WE-Link have made it their mission to help build brand Philippines all over the world.

This year, 29 companies from the Philippines were in Ambiente — 20 independent manufacturers, and 13 supported by CITEM (Center for International Trade Expositions and Missions) which exhibited in the Lifestyle Philippines pavilion.

Anna Marie Alzona, assistant division chief of CITEM’s strategic business unit, says this is only CITEM’s second year of participation after a 16-year hiatus by the government’s marketing arm. 

Interestingly, CITEM this year chose small and micro companies to bring to Ambiente. Anna explains that CITEM “handholds export-ready companies while those that are just beginning are handled by the EMB (Export Marketing Bureau) to get them through the stages until they are ready to export their goods.”

Anna adds, “We felt that it’s time again to make our presence felt in Ambiente because it’s more focused on wholesale rather than design brands. And Lifestyle Philippines is the brand for consumer goods shows.”

Althea Karen Antonio, commercial counselor of the Philippine Embassy in Berlin, agrees. “In Europe, trade fairs are the way to go. It’s the meeting place for buyers and sellers, unlike the Middle East maybe where outbound sales missions do better,” she says. “I always say, Wilbert has been bringing these companies for the past 15 years and this affirms the importance of Ambiente in the global market.”

Indeed, some of the independent exhibitors have been exhibiting every year for the past two or three decades. Joel F. Cervas of Aerostone, which manufactures reconstituted stone (they grind the stone and then mold them into water fountains and other outdoor accessories) remembers that he and his sister were just teenagers when their parents started going to the Frankfurt show. Virginia Chan of Shell Arts Company, which makes the most beautiful and cheerful capiz shell accessories such as tea sets, trays and chandeliers, has been exhibiting for 30 years. She bought the company from the American founders in 1989 but had been working for Shell Arts since 1966.

“Messe Frankfurt really makes it easy for exhibitors to participate,” says Wilbert. For one, if you have the exhibitor’s badge, you get to use the public transport during the show — train, tram and bus — to get around Frankfurt and neighboring cities. “That’s important because transportation adds to the exhibitor’s cost.”

Another crucial differentiator is that Frankfurt protects its exhibitors from piracy or copyright infringement. “They have a consortium of patent lawyers that mediate when an exhibitor complains. If they have their patent papers and can prove their designs were copied by another exhibitor, Messe will mediate or shut down the stand of the copier or ban them from joining the exhibit for a year.”

DESIGNING WITH EMOTION AND A SOUL

The trends in Ambiente — as they have been building these past years — are natural, sustainable, and made with a conscience. And this is where the Philippines excels.

“Philippine products are known to be coming from the soul of the artisans and craftsmen,” says Wilbert. “We are not into mass production on the scale of China or Japan. This is our niche. Buyers buy Philippine products because of the stories behind them, how they generate livelihood for entire communities and how the raw materials are repurposed and sustainable.”

Shelmed Cottage Treasures director of marketing Meshelle Villanueva knows this firsthand. The company founded by her grandparents 43 years ago continues with the traditional way of weaving baskets and accessories. Their products, all made from abaca, are a hundred-percent handmade. What has changed, she says, is the focus on nontoxic dyes and the freedom to play with colors with technology and research lending a helping hand. 

Meshelle says, “We have a village that we work with and some of these women have kids suffering from cerebral palsy, so they cannot leave their homes. They do the weaving and everything comes back to the factory for quality control. Every item has a charm and story that a machine-made product can never give. Sometimes buyers would say, ‘I’ll buy 1,000 or 10,000 pieces.’ But even when you buy by volume, the price doesn’t change much because people doing them still have only two hands — and the skill that goes into it is not something you learn in a day; it’s passed on from one family member to another, from one neighbor to another.”

Truly, it takes a village to weave a basket.

Only human hands, for example, could make the adorable mini abaca bags that retailers use as high-end packaging for tea bags or bonbons and gifts.

Rachel Basilio, product development head of Anastacio Ceramics, which was established by her father in 1975 in Pampanga, knows this too well. Buyers prefer the distressed look on her terracotta vases that are still made hand-thrown and not from molds.

“Clients for a while preferred the clean, molded vases but now they’re going back to the rustic and imperfect look because they — especially European companies — want to support artisans.”

RECYCLING, UPCYCLING CENTURIES-OLD MATERIALS & BYPRODUCTS

Contemporaneo founder Arnulfo Milambiling once saved a piece of wood that was already tossed in the fire as panggatong. In his hand, that piece became an accessory, part of it darkened black from the fire. Seeing it in Ambiente, I can say it looks much better for it.

The imperfection of recycled materials is appealing to people rather than a turnoff, and if you hear the story behind these products — so much the better.  

Contemporaneo’s tables and accessories in the Unisan collection are cut wood that comes from the bottom of the sea — from shipwrecks during the Galleon Trade and sourced from Quezon province. These molave, narra and dungon — wood buried in the sea and shaped by water and time are 400 years old.

“These were scraps that we saved and cut into small pieces and then put together; clients love our pieces because they are so light.”

Looking at the small strips of wood, you can imagine the man-hours spent putting each one in place. “We’re not only using what would otherwise be thrown, we’re also providing the women of Pasig a livelihood; while they work from home, our quality inspector goes around to check their progress.”

For Pete Delantar, president and founder of Nature’s Legacy, forest debris — fallen leaves, twigs and branches — can become useful and beautiful in the right hands.

He calls this collection Naturecast, made from recycled debris, treated and bound by a water-base solution to create bowls, vases and other accessories.

His training as an industrial designer came in handy when he founded the company in 1983. Today, he has three other collections based on their materials — Marmorcast, made from cast polymer materials with polymer resin to create food-safe and vibrant pieces that look like glass, such as the bowls he supplied for the suites of Shangri-La at the Fort.

There’s also Nucast or made from recycled paper products whose utility has expanded to chandeliers (which look like shells!) because with the use of LED lights now, the lighting doesn’t get hot so it’s safe to use paper. The fourth is Stonecast, handmade from natural crushed stone and dry-stamped into a mold to simulate how the earth makes limestone.

“The secret to being a successful exporter is to have new designs every time or you will become obsolete. We have independent designers form Cebu and Manila, and we also invite interns from the design schools. The young graduates are very creative, you just have to unlock their talent by exposing them to showrooms and manufacturing processes.”

Nature’s Legacy is one of 220 companies from 50 countries awarded the Ethical Style seal — not only for its recycled materials and processing but also for the low carbon footprint. Pete has provided his workers housing near the factory, so they just bike to work.

This seal is so important because buyers who want to do business with ethical and environmental-friendly companies can just look for it since they’ve gone through the vetting process with Ambiente.

Pete says, “The world has come to realize that when we constantly use fresh resources, the supply gets depleted. Plus the buyers are not into the disposable mindset anymore, they want something that will last. Upcycling or recycling is giving another life to something that would have been just waste.

Europe — composed of 28 countries — is a market (more so than the US) that’s very particular about sustainability. Pete says, “They say there’ll be 9.8-percent growth of such products in the next 10 years.”

It’s not just the materials that matter, it’s how they’re made, too. “We teach our workers to put emotion into their work, then the quality improves and the products turn out beautiful.”

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Check out the author’s travel blog at www.findingmyway.net. Follow her on Instagram and Twitter @iamtanyalara.

Independent manufacturers that exhibited in Ambiente were Anastacio Ceramics, Aerostone Inc., Asia Ceramics, Chrysara-Carat Mfg., Contemporaneo Design, CSM Philippines, Culture’s Way, Dekokraft, Eliano Baluyut Pottery, Gardini Picanti, Goltrio Inc., Home Edition, Island Accents, Markalex Creative Craft, Nature’s Legacy, Oriental Handicraft, Shell Art, Shelmed Cottage Treasures, South Seas Native Treasures, Terra Cotta Art Works.

Manufacturers under CITEM were 33 Point 3, Basket & Weaves, Bon-Ace Fashion Tool, Cagayan de Oro Handmade Paper, Chanalli, Celestial Arts, Department 24, Elm’s Accessoria de Casa, Julie Anne’s Handicraft, Larone Crafts, New Maddela Flowers and Crafts, Oricon Corporation and Robles Heritage.