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Bijoux Cebu showcases eco-friendly jewelry

Some that glitter are ‘green’

By Maripet L. Poso, Staff Writer Photos by Marinela L. Poso

10/16/2009

Not all that glitters is gold; some are green and actually made from scrap! And Cebu, the country’s fashion accessory capital, was actively promoting green jewelry way before the term “eco-friendly” became synonymous with “chic” and “trendy.”

But it was only last year when the Cebu Fashion Accessories Manufacturers and Exporters Foundation (Cebu FAME Foundation) decided to go all out and launch the first ever international accessories trade fair in the country through Bijoux Cebu. Now on its second year, Bijoux Cebu has successfully presented its 2010 spring/summer collection and trade show at Shangri-La’s Mactan Resort and Spa in Cebu, which was participated in by more than 70 local exporters, attended by over 200 foreign and local buyers — distributors, importers, wholesalers, merchandising agents, retailers and department store buyers --- and supported by the Department of Tourism, Export Development Council and Department of Environment and Natural Resources.

“We go to all international shows abroad. In fact, we try to go to one every three months,” says Janet Chua, Cebu FAME president. “And we can easily spend half a million in one show. With the increasingly high cost in joining these shows, not all of our exporters can regularly participate, and fewer Philippine exhibitors mean lesser market share for our country.”

By holding their own trade show in Cebu, Chua says “participation cost is much lower, more exporters can join, and a wider variety of products can be showcased.”

Chua adds that international shows are big events with hundreds of distributors/exhibitors all over the world. Buyers, as a result, have a limited time to go around and see everything. “That’s why we decided to do a show here in Cebu for buyers to focus on Philippine jewelry,” Chua explains.

To make it even more convenient, they decided to hold the show right after the trade fair in Hong Kong. “So the buyers can just fly in,” she explains. “And this is recreation for them at the same time — try out the spa, go shopping. They can check out the Philippine jewelry and enjoy the beach at the same; time stimulates ideas — what they can do with natural materials, how to work with Philippine exporters to come up with their own collection.”

The green bling

The country’s fashion accessory industry has been around for more than 40 years. Chua says they have been through the ups and downs that go with the cyclical and seasonal nature of the business, but they continue to grow and expand. They are also not afraid of the recession.

To think that this multi-million industry started out with mere puka shells! As the story goes, Hollywood actress Elizabeth Taylor wore a stand of puka shells made by the American Indians, which became a big hit in the international fashion industry. “People started scrambling to find puka shells,” shares Chua during her speech at the opening of the Bijoux Cebu. The American-Indians couldn’t do them in large quantities, so the price went as high as $400 for a strand of puka shells. “One enterprising American importer found out that the Philippines has the best puka shells in the world. So they started sourcing them from Puka Beach in Boracay and even taught the locals how to strand them into necklaces,” relates Chua.

This became a good business for Filipinos, the Cebuanos in particular. Unfortunately, Chua says, it turned out to be just a fad, and like all fads it came to an end. “But the really good thing is that the Philippine exporters did not stop at puka shells. They started using coconut shells, seashells, wood branches, palm leaves, seeds, etc… And they learned many techniques to make the natural materials more attractive and wearable as fashion accessories.” After almost 40 years, Philippine jewelry has risen in the international market.

Before organic became the rage and green became the new gold, Cebuanos were already at the forefront of promoting eco-friendly and green fashion accessories.

“‘Green’ refers to an item being sustainable. You don’t use materials that will hurt the environment,” explains Chua. “For example, you make jewelry out of seeds. The seeds normally follow the natural cycle of life, right? It falls; we make it into jewelry. It’s sustainable; it’s eco-friendly.” She adds that another criteria of green jewelry is recycling, citing the wrapper of TetraPaks or candies that are made into accessories or bags. “Instead of throwing them out and creating more garbage, you make them useful again as jewelry. That’s recycling.”

What’s more amazing about their products is that they are not made in big factories that create a lot of pollution. Chua reveals that a lot of these are done at home, in communities. “It’s really the rural people who make them. It’s like home business for them. A lot of homemakers can’t work outside their homes because they have to take care of their children, so they bring the work home with them. It’s extra money for them.”

Chua is happy to announce that despite the economic crunch, the industry is doing quite well in the international market. “We have our own niche,” she shares. “The jewelry from the Philippines has never been duplicated anywhere.”

One of the most stylish things in fashion today is wooden jewelry. “It’s good because the trend now in fashion is that the clothes are very simple. So they just accessorize it with jewelry.”

The eco-warriors

Two interesting exhibitors at the Cebu expo were French-owned Kor Landa and local pride ISH Fashion Accessories.

Antoine Boivin of Kor Landa shares that they have two brands in Paris that sell Philippine-made, eco-friendly fashion accessories. “Some of our clients give us guides, and we do the designs,” Boivin says, adding that Kor Landa has been in the Philippines for over 20 years now, with distributors in the US, Europe and Africa. They use mainly coconut shells, wood and seeds. Part of the last collection of one of their brands is recycled, using paper clips and soda cans, interestingly mixed with electrical stuff.

Kor Landa creates beautiful and intricate designs that appeal to the international market. What is sad, however, is that their Philippine-made green jewelries are not sold locally. You’ll have to go to Paris to be able to purchase their pieces.

ISH Fashion Accessories, on the other hand, specializes in recycling and reclaiming.

“This one is made from detergent wrapper,” says Karen Woolbright, chief designer and owner of ISH, showing off an interesting-looking pendant.

Sourcing the material is the tricky part of the business, she says. “You have to have a system of where to get your sources. These are really post-consumer materials.” She adds that they don’t get them from the garbage. It’s all about educating communities. “We don’t actually ask for it. We buy it from them. So it becomes extra income for them also.”

Woolbright says the recycled items are getting “very, very good reception” internationally. She regrets that others tend to promote green jewelry not as eco-friendly, but rather as chic and unusual accessories. She says being in this business makes you realize that some companies don’t really care much about being environmentally friendly. Their only concern is how much money they will make from it.

Some people always ask Woolbright why she transforms waste materials into jewelry rather than just recycling them. “It’s not actually recycling. It’s called reclaiming,” she explains. “When you say recycle, you have a bottle, you chop it up, you make it into plastic again, and then you make a new bottle. When you reuse, you have a bottle, you wash it, put water in it again and drink from it again. Now, when you have a bottle cap, you twist it and make it into an earring. That’s reclaiming.”

And the reason she does it? “Currently the only way to recycle these things is to incinerate them because these are mixed plastic and metal. So you have to dissolve the plastic. And incineration causes a lot of toxic fumes. It’s again doing something that will harm the environment more.”

By reclaiming junk, Woolbright makes beautiful and exotic jewelry, one candy wrapper and empty ballpen at a time.

Of giving back to nature and the community

To make sure that resources will always be available for them, Cebu FAME came up with the Go Green Philippines project, which was launched in 1997, in partnership with the Department of Environment and Natural Resources.

“They have awarded us an initial 10 hectares of land in Catmon and another 15 hectares in San Remigio,” shares Chua.

The Philippine fashion accessory industry relies heavily on the country’s vast natural resources as the raw materials for its products, “So it is high time that we sustained it,” says Chua. They are now currently in the first phase of a long-term project, initially planting the 10-hectare land with pangantuan trees. “We have been using the wood pangantuan for many years now,” says Chua. “It’s white wood and dyes very well. You can have it in any color you want and it will come out beautifully. We decided to sustain it and not just wait for the suppliers to provide us the materials.”

Chua explains that the forest of Cebu has very low coverage. With only five percent covered, they want to raise it to 12 percent by 2015. “So we said, okay, why don’t we work together? We plant the pangantuan trees; the rural communities will tend to it.” In five years the first trees will be ready for harvest. In the end, it’s not only about giving back to nature, it’s also generating income for the people.

“We want to maintain the Philippine ecosystem to ensure the continuity of our country’s resources and, at the same time, ensure the continued growth of out industry,” affirms Chua.

The project is so promising that many international clients have started supporting it, including Marks & Spencer. Initially, they only wanted buyers to donate, offering five percent discount in exchange for a certificate stating that the client is donating a certain number of trees, which the Go Green project plant in their names. “A lot of buyers donated one hectare, which is equivalent to 2,500 trees. The buyers liked the idea so much that they wanted to join the program,” she adds. To date, Chua says, Marks & Spencer has spent almost P5 million or $50,000 for the labels alone.

Another project that’s in the pipeline for Cebu FAME is the protection of seashells. “It is not an easy task. It is easy to talk about it, but it’s not easy to implement it. We are not just making slogans and riding on the popularity of eco-chic to launch our project. We really believe in what we are doing here. We hope to be known as Asia’s destination for green jewelry,” ends Chua.