Top events of 2014 on the home-style front
IF THE LOCAL retail scene welcomed a number of global fast-fashion brands in 2014, the country’s home and entertaining front also opened its doors to two of the biggest furniture and home accessories chains in North America.
In July, San Franciscobased Pottery Barn and Pottery Barn Kids opened their first outlet in the Philippines, a 1,000-square meter, twolevel store at Bonifacio High Street’s Central Square in Taguig.
A subsidiary of WilliamsSonoma Inc. and exclusively represented in the Philippines by Stores Specialists Inc., Pottery Barn is famous for producing the “classic American” look—a fresh take on modern and minimalist furniture and accent pieces that appeal to a growing number of young, well-traveled Filipinos.
The store also has a Design Studio where customers can consult with Pottery Barn’s trained design specialists.
In November, it was Illinois-based Crate & Barrel’s turn to open its first store in the Philippines at SM Mega Fashion Hall in Mandaluyong.
Its 2,000-sq mstore offers Filipinos timeless and casual furniture and accent pieces designed and sourced from all over the world. The chain’s goal since it was established in the early ’60s has been to make “great designs accessible.”
Crate & Barrel, a subsidiary of Otto GmbH, is represented in the Philippines by SM Retailer, which plans to open its second and third Crate & Barrel branches in the Philippines by the first quarter of 2015.
It’s not everyday that you get to mix with the country’s leading architects, interior designers, tastemakers and furniture and accessories designers in one venue. But once you do, expect to go home with a treasure-trove of practical ideas on trends, sources and even philosophies in the home world and beyond.
It took Cocoon Magazine, a quarterly home and interior design glossy published by the Philippine Daily Inquirer, Inc., to bring together the likes of Budji Layug, Kenneth Cobonpue, Ed Calma, Royal Pineda, Tony Gonzales, Tes Pasola, Conrad Onglao and J. Antonio Mendoza to grace the launching of “The Best of Cocoon” in June at Kuysen showroom in Makati.
The 277-page coffee-table book is a compilation of the finest stories and images featured in the pages of Cocoon during the past three years. The event also drew some of the country’s most prominent personalities who gladly opened their homes to the magazine’s editors, writers and photographers.