Bamboo has been long prized in Philippine furniture making for its accessibility and, to quote a fable involving a very showy mango tree and an unassuming bamboo tree, pliability. For her part, the alumna of local furniture workshop E. Murio uses the hollow vessels for purposes other than what it is traditionally meant for. In lieu of a papag of splintered bamboo shoots, she keeps them whole, working around its hollowness, or deconstructing it only to reconstruct and reimagine the possibilities of something sprouting out of it, something like the myth of Malakas and Maganda.
If it isn’t obvious by now, lighting is her favorite object to make because “light to me also feels alive,” she said. “It also has a pulse which I translate to breathing.” She referenced an interview of designer Issey Miyake’s former right hand Makiko Minagawa—shared by her artist friend Ana La O’—where the textile designer says, “But as long as there’s sun and light, various textures are born.”
Guava Sketches, a purveyor of local and international novelty items, fashion, furniture, and design, was one of the first stores to stock Wareco in 2018. Its general manager Joan Cantemprate remembers following Therese since her time as E. Murio's production manager. “I love her works and her passion for designing objects,” Joan told Nolisoli.ph in an interview. “She is involved in every aspect from ideas to the process to actual production.”
This is partly because Wareco is a one-woman team, though that doesn’t mean Regalado’s a lone island of ideas. She admits despite a sense of stolid self-reliance, “It’s hard to work on stuff when you’re only talking to yourself.”
Over the course of the last two years, she’s worked with clients on custom furniture orders and collaborated with friends such as designer Carl Jan Cruz to create one-offs. Last year, the two reimagined the iconic Ishinomaki stool from Japanese furniture brand Ishinomaki Lab to celebrate its 10th anniversary. Therese darkened the stool’s light finish and gave it red streaks to match the cushion made out of Cruz’s studio-developed rib gabao fabric.
“She’s always game, doing her thing without being imposing… and very open to things,” Cruz said of Regalado. When he reached out to her, he said it came out of knowing each other’s expertise, a natural evolution of their friendship. He describes Therese’s work as timeless and contemporary, a part of “an imagined world that has come into reality.”
Guava Sketches, a purveyor of local and international novelty items, fashion, furniture, and design, was one of the first stores to stock Wareco in 2018. Its general manager Joan Cantemprate remembers following Therese since her time as E. Murio's production manager. “I love her works and her passion for designing objects,” Joan told Nolisoli.ph in an interview. “She is involved in every aspect from ideas to the process to actual production.”
Over the course of the last two years, she’s worked with clients on custom furniture orders and collaborated with friends such as designer Carl Jan Cruz to create one-offs. Last year, the two reimagined the iconic Ishinomaki stool from Japanese furniture brand Ishinomaki Lab to celebrate its 10th anniversary. Therese darkened the stool’s light finish and gave it red streaks to match the cushion made out of Cruz’s studio-developed rib gabao fabric.
“She’s always game, doing her thing without being imposing… and very open to things,” Cruz said of Regalado. When he reached out to her, he said it came out of knowing each other’s expertise, a natural evolution of their friendship. He describes Therese’s work as timeless and contemporary, a part of “an imagined world that has come into reality.”
For the last few months, she’s worked with craftsmen anew, this time in Dumaguete and Bacolod—which is five to six hours apart by land—to work on a new collection for Wareco coming out this month. It’s an ode to Therese’s hometown in Negros, where its key materials are abundant and thus utilized in what was once a booming industry: rattan.
The Philippines is a known exporter of rattan as the vine grows in abundance in multiple parts of the country, so much so that one of its monikers is Manila cane. There are over 64 known rattan species that grow locally. Out of these, only three are favored by furniture makers for their abundance in nature as well as their girthy diameter that can reach two centimeters or more.
“I always want to start with something impossible,” she said, often beginning with a sketch that puzzles and challenges craftsmen used to traditional ways of working within rattan’s range. “Because there will always be options for the workaround where we have interesting solutions we can play around with.”
In this manner, metal acts as a reinforcement to rattan that’s been pushed beyond its limits. “When I had fabricated the stainless steel with this collection I was thinking of connecting materials at their sturdiest points to supplement the whole. How and where to brace with the least amount of intrusion,” Therese explained.
One of rattan furniture’s distinguishing features is its natural finish, a product of drying that renders the cane a color akin to local candies balikutsa and tira-tira’s pale warmth. Few craftsmen are brave enough to show the lengths through which rattan has been subjected to achieve Fibonacciesque curves—for one, heat that enables its fibers to be malleable enough but also results in distinctive burn marks. Still, fewer are those like Therese who amplifies these cheetah-like spots and paints the canes back to their wild green hue resembling her first love: bamboo.
One thing Therese is sure of is Wareco’s natural evolution. The name was originally intended to connote different kinds of wares: software, hardware, homeware, you name it. (She’s also comfortable pronouncing it as “wa-rê-co,” like a Japanese word). So far, she’s crossed out two—three if you count fabric as software—but she’s not stopping there. “I still plan to continue this by making objects with craftsmen in varying sectors of expertise.” ●
Creative direction by Nimu Muallam
Art direction by Levenspeil Sangalang
Produced by Christian San Jose
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