All about the good life

MANILA, Philippines - Whether it’s a weekend backpacking trip to the mountains or just downing a nice cold punch at the beach, a good old vacation effortlessly brings a clear picture of happiness. With this exact thought in mind, the team behind home and lifestyle boutique Heima brought about their eighth collection, aptly called “This is the Life.”

Heima launched their summer line in an intimate set-up last May 24 with music from SimilarObjects, Supermikki, Kate Torralba, Toni B. & Sancho, Hannah+Gabi, and Ourselves The Elves. Invited guests arrived to see their LRI Design Plaza space laid out with the new colorful pieces that playfully straddled the lines of the fun outdoors and the cozy home.

“We thought of ‘This is the life’ as something you would say if you were on the beach or a holiday vacation,” remarked Gigi Lapid, Heima’s Visual Communication Design Lead. “But a lot of people now don’t have the time to go out and would (rather have) stay-cations, so we wanted to bring that whole feel of vacation into their homes.”

Although this time of the year is synonymous with beach prints and tropical sceneries, this collection dons geometric patterns in bold pastels, primary colors, and hints of metallic gold, a style that somehow distanced itself from the shop’s quirky signature from previous collections. And it was a good change to see.

Notable was the retro-looking graphic prints inspired by the “simplified shapes of the sun, sea, and sky” — a visual that cascaded to other aspects of the collection and came in different colors.

“(Founders Rosy and Bong Rojales) and the team wanted to take Heima into a more mature direction,” noted Gigi, who furthered that it was their own break from the maximal aesthetic that they usually have. “It’s more clean, more mature. It’s more grown up.”

But as Heima showed with this collection, you can never really be too old nor young to enjoy life’s simple joy of taking a well-deserved retreat — even if it’s just in your own home. — Martin Diegor