PREVIEW OF KALYE ARTISANO
KALYE ARTISANO IN PALAWAN Airport regularly, with three round-trips daily the whole year, but six round-trips daily during peak season. The Piopio line of Paloma will be housed in a permanent store at Kalye Artisano which opens next year. Meanwhile, Pio
Paloma Zobel creates her own Piopio line and a dream village with her mom Bea in Palawan
Iam coming home. For good.
An amazing surge of Filipino pride calls me and people of my generation to do something for our country.
Since I was nine years old, I have been studying in the United States and Europe. And every time I was in the Philippines, my mother would bring me to provinces all over the country. I saw wonderful communities of weavers and artists creating incredibly intricate and beautiful pieces. My mother has always been a huge promoter of handicrafts, and while her mind was focused on home wares, mine quickly shifted to clothing.
We saw the inabel in Ilocos and we immediately thought: Why not create something different with this beautiful fabric which people normally use for blankets? The village weavers told me these were also used during Spanish times as sails for boats, since it is a durable fabric. So we fashioned it into long and short caftans. We also made blouses and put fringes for an edgy look. We wanted to introduce the inabel to people who were not exposed to it on a regular basis, and hope they would find it approachable and affordable.
We didn’t want to waste the leftover scraps of fabrics so we got denim jackets from the ukay-ukay and patched them with the fabrics.
My mother has led me to discover many other nice fabrics from Samar, Abra and Iloilo. One of our bestsellers is our line of cardigans from Iloilo.
We create small collections as well as individual pieces. We hope to provide more.
The line is called Piopio. My name — Paloma — means “bird” in Spanish. And “piopio” is the Spanish onomatopoeia for the sound the bird makes.
Yes, like a homing pigeon — or dove -— I am coming home. But I will be spending more time in El Nido. That is Spanish for “nest.”
Yes, Paloma will be nesting in El Nido with her mother, Bea Zobel.
Bea, a cultural activist who is always inspired by things of beauty she finds in provinces all over the Philippines, has a new project that will make people want to rediscover their roots and fall in love once again with all things Filipino.
A year ago, Bea and her daughter Paloma were dreaming of an artistic community — an artisan village in Palawan to be called Kalye Artisano. “We started conversations with designer Tony Gonzales about building a fun, artistic community in Palawan, which will include a strip of B&B (bed and breakfast) boutique hotels uniquely designed by Filipino artists and architects to offer people a new immersive experience,” Paloma narrates.
Bea says she has invited creative personalities to each acquire an 800-square-meter space and transform it into 12 B&Bs, each with 10 to 15 rooms, and with its own personality and identity. “But of course, we want to promote Filipino architecture and design. We have Tony Gonzales, Mark Wilson, Impy Pilapil, Conrad Onglao, Anton Mendoza, Rajo Laurel, Tess Pasola, Bambi Manosa-Tanjutco, Jessica Puyat, Maricris Brias, Lulu Tan Gan and myself to create these B&Bs,” says Bea.
“We will have the artisans of Puerto Princesa bring in their ceramics, woodware and handicrafts and sell their products in Kalye Artisano. And we will also conduct workshops. We will have Filipino food concepts in this village. Ayala Foundation is involved in helping communities in the area, and we want to boost the livelihood of these communities by getting fresh fish and produce from them, among others.”
Palawan, which has been named “Best Island in the World,” currently boasts the Ayala Land Hotels & Resorts Corp.-run El Nido Resorts (composed of four islands) which in turn have garnered the coveted Asia’s Responsible Tourism Award.
Aside from El Nido Resorts, Ayala will open Casa Kalaw in December, Covo in January, and Balai Adalao in March. Seda Lio will open in late 2017. These hotels will be in Lio, a town seven kilometers away from El Nido town.
Bea says Kalye Artisano in Lio will be within biking distance of El Nido town. “Rather, bamboo-biking distance away. Yes, we will promote bamboo bikes there.” As for transport from Manila, Air Swift flies from Manila to Lio