Renowned creative entrepreneur and fashion retailer Ricco Ocampo recently unveiled Forthway, Casa Collective’s latest bed and bath line. He officially launched the brand on May 20th with an intimate launch party held at his residence in Makati. It features handcrafted bed and bath essentials with artisanal touches.
With its tagline “The future belongs to your imagination,” Ricco Ocampo envisions these products to transcend the basics. While they may appear simple, the materiality and craftsmanship poured into every piece separate them from your everyday bed and bath items.
The entrepreneur proudly revealed that the bed linens are made from the highest quality Egyptian cotton. With its lightweight, durable, and notably soft characteristics, they make the perfect choice for elevating your beddings at home.
The towels are made with Egyptian cotton terry acquired all the way from Turkey. Using such a hard wearing and high pile fiber gives them a plush, comfortable feel, and provides excellent absorbency. Combined with these luxurious fibers, Forthway integrated homegrown designs that champion La Union’s very own artisanal traditions.
Although they keep the usual, white design of these items, they made sure their edgings will immediately capture attention. Their button and tassel designs are all products of a labor-intensive process. Each tassel boasts an 800-thread count and takes about six hours to sew, while the buttons are all consistent in size despite being handmade. They also offer a six-ply crochet blanket that requires four people and three weeks to finish.
And from that slow and meticulous process comes timeless masterpieces you can regularly use at home.
Ocampo found a second home in La Union back during the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. Since then, he spends most of his time in the province and decided to develop properties there. And while in the municipality of Bauang, he found the talented, women artisans of La Union.
Fascinated by their great talent for embroidery, the entrepreneur thought of how he could put their skills toward creating more meaningful products. As his daughter kept talking about the quality of towels in Turkey, Ocampo thought of fusing these materials and designs. After seeing the success of giving artisanal touches to the Turkish towels, he added the sheets to create the perfect pair of bed and bath items.
But what struck him the most is the unfading craftsmanship of these La Union women despite their age. As of now, 80 artisans help in translating Ocampo’s creative visions into reality; the youngest of whom is 49 years old, while the rest fall between the ages of 68 to 74.
However, working with these skilled people still comes with its challenges. Ocampo knows the prime obstacle in handmade crafts is maintaining a consistent size and design. So, he closely monitors each work to ensure uniformity across his product line. Furthermore, since La Union doesn’t generally produce tassels, it’s also a challenge to bring the raw materials to the artisans.
Even so, the entrepreneur finds pride in doing and supporting local artisanal craft.
“I mean, I’m so proud of what they [La Union women artisans] do. That we can do something that looks viable international[ly] but all done in the Philippines. I’m quite happy that they continue doing these things for me,” Ocampo expressed.
Along with promoting homegrown designs, Ocampo’s goal for Forthway’s new bed and bath line is to enhance one’s home even with just the basics. To him, it’s very important to own beautiful home items made with integrity. And with these simple, artisanal products, he wants people to have nice things they could actually use.
As of now, Casa Collective’s Forthway offers bath towels, hand towels, face towels, and bath mats with prices ranging from Php 600 to Php 1,900. For the bed line, bed sheets come in queen, king, and california king sizes priced at Php 16,500 to Php 19,500. These are also offered in sets, including a pillowcase, duvet cover, flat sheet, and fitted sheet. And the six-ply crochet blanket costs Php 20,000.
All products are available in multi tassel, beige tassel, green button, and gray button designs.
Aside from these new items, they also have table napkins made from French and Belgian linens with the same La Union artisanal accents. In addition, their vintage and recycled bed spreads can alternately be used as tablecloths and are also part of their La Union collections.
You can pre-order these items or set an appointment to privately shop at Ricco Ocampo’s home showroom in Makati through Casa Collective’s instagram account.
Photographed by Excel Panlaque
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