Furniture history book seen to inspire local firms, designers

CAN a book help the ailing furniture industry in Cebu?

Publishers of the book “Cebu Furniture Industry: A History of Inspiration and Innovation” believe the book can inspire local designers, industry stakeholders and the academe to create more designs that can win over more buyers.

“The book is aimed to inspire and make our history known to the world. As early as 1945, we have already been producing quality furniture,” said Charles Streegan, co-publisher of the book and former Cebu Furniture Industry Foundation (CFIF) president.

While the economies in major markets such as the United States of America and Europe remain soft, Streegan said that the local designers would still need to be inspired to create designs that would be more compelling for the buyers to really buy them.

“That’s the name of the game now. Make more compelling designs in order to compete. Now it is the high-end market that’s sustaining most of the furniture exporters in Cebu,” said Streegan.

Streegan said he and his copublisher, ARTPOST ASIA Inc. had been working on the book for three years.

The 300-page book features iconic items from about 100 companies in Cebu, especially the key players like Kenneth Cobonpue, Mehitabel Furniture Inc. and more.

“Aside from the iconic pieces, we have also highlighted the raw materials used in the pieces of furniture because many don’t even know that we grow rattan here,” he said.

He also said the domestic market needed to be developed so that we could compete and supply the local firms requirements.

Streegan was referring to the practice of companies here like the resort properties still importing their pieces of furniture. He said this compels local furniture exporters to compete with these foreign manufacturers.

“We hope that through this book, we can help market our products as well as inspire other designers to create more creative pieces that we can boast about in the future. We have a very rich history, it’s time we let the world know about it,” he said.

The book will be sold at P3,500 each for the hardbound and P2,900 for the softbound books and will be distributed around the country and markets abroad as well.

Streegan said that they have printed 2,000 copies of the book. Part of the proceeds will go to CFIF as the beneficiary organization. /Reporter Aileen Garcia-Yap