by Kristine Servando, abs-cbnNEWS.com/Newsbreak | 11/04/2009 11:43 PM
MANILA - The latest fashion craze to hit the Bicol region is a set of accessories made from recycled buttons.
The fashion accessories line is sold by F.A.R.M. (short for Fabulously and Absolutely Rural-Made) based in Baao town in Camarines Sur.
Their line includes bracelets, earrings, cocktail rings, French barrettes and layered necklaces essentially made from discarded buttons strung together with metal, leather bands or beads.
The products have been making the rounds at Bicol-based eco-fashion shows and most recently figured in the OK Bicol Trade Fair held at SM Megamall from October 22 to 25.
"So many people are curious about our product. They think it's a cute idea," said 46-year-old F.A.R.M. owner Bernadette De Los Santos in an interview with abs-cbnNEWS.com/Newsbreak.
Since she founded the company in January last year, De Los Santos (a Business Management graduate from Ateneo de Manila University), described her 10 months of doing business as "phenomenal."
"A regular businessman would not believe it. They cannot believe that I can make money from buttons. What others thought as trash, I found gold," she said.
Without a store, the company promotes its wares on social networking site Facebook and sells its products through its blog site.
The blog, launched in May this year, is a chronicle of F.A.R.M.'s activities, socio-civic programs like accessory-making workshops and the F.A.R.M. team's journey to success.
Recycling buttons
The button-bracelet business, De Los Santos said, started in October last year as a sideline to her quilt and patchwork business in Baao town in Bicol.
She would collect vintage buttons from fabrics she bought at "ukay-ukay" or second-hand clothing stores and make them into bracelets as gifts for friends and family.
"The main thing here is recycling. When we hold skills workshops [for Baao housewives, students or jail inmates], I teach proper waste disposal and what they can reinvent into something useful," De Los Santos, a licensed teacher, said.
Encouraged by the response to her handmade accessories, she formally started F.A.R.M. about 3 months later, with a regular supplier of discarded Japanese buttons from clothing and button factories reportedly in Navotas.
F.A.R.M. now sells a whole line of trinkets with colorful names like "Zebra" for their monochromatic-themed bracelets and necklaces, "Valeriana" for vintage dangling earrings, and "Pinyapol" for accessories made with a mix of orange and yellow buttons.
Chunky buttons are stacked with smaller, more delicate ones, while plain buttons are paired with embellished or patterned buttons to make each accessory visually interesting.
De Los Santos, a self-trained watercolor painter, designs the items herself.
Bracelets are priced at P175, cocktail rings for P75 and earrings 60. De Los Santos said she wants to keep prices low because many Baao residents here and abroad re-sell her products at trade fairs or in workplaces.
Fashion with a cause
More than just being a "cute idea", De Los Santos explained that her customers also appreciate the fact that a portion of sales are used to fund the college education of "deserving students" in Baao through their "Buttons to Hope" program.
Currently, De Los Santos is putting 3 female students through college.
Also, by training or employing housewives and a handful of farming families in upland villages of Baao, the company is able to provide income for poor families during non-harvest seasons.
Skilled workers are paid a certain amount for every accessory they make, like P0.50 for yo-yo quilts and P17 for more intricate accessories. One family is also paid to clean entire sacks of buttons and sort them by size and color.
Each accessory comes with a tiny printed note detailing F.A.R.M.'s advocacies and who benefits from the company's proceeds.
"These bracelets aren't really [at the cutting edge of fashion]. But because of the cause, and the support of Baao people who are living abroad, so many people are buying. It's like there is pride when customers wear them because they know they are helping our municipality. It's very touching," De Los Santos said.
With money from the F.A.R.M. bracelet business, the company was able to turn the entrepreneur's family organic farm, La Huerta De Los Santos in Barangay Sta. Teresita, into an eco-tourism destination.
This serves as a venue for farming workshops by the Department of Agriculture and a hub for F.A.R.M. skills trainings.
Baao, an agricultural municipality located 455 kilometers southeast of Manila, is known in the Bicol region for producing 3 things: eggs, til2,apia fish, as well as priests and nuns. The area is also a prime destination for agro-trade businesses like poultry and swine-raising, tilapia fingerling production, and crop-harvesting.
Online boost
F.A.R.M. gets most of its orders from customers abroad through the F.A.R.M. blog, which got 28,000 page visits in 5 months.
Regular customers - some of whom are overseas Filipino workers who grew up in Baao - come from Germany, Australia, Canada, three states in the US, United Kingdom, Sweden, and Ireland.She ships them in bulk through the local post office.
"It's funny, I think the buttons have universal appeal. Because buttons are used by every race. And we found out that foreign buyers appreciate the products more because they have a social dimension. Meaning, this business is not just for me to make a profit because it helps people as well," De Los Santos said.
She said F.A.R.M. makes about 2,000 bracelets and sells most of them through the company's blog site every month.
Sales at the OK Bicol Trade Fair were also good, with Manila residents buying off her inventory. "I overshot my [target] of P60,000 a few days in," De Los Santos said.
F.A.R.M. designs have been copied by other entrepreneurs in her hometown but De Los Santos said she doesn't mind.
"It's income for them. Besides, I'm confident they can't replicate the quality and uniqueness of [my] designs," she said.
With a relatively successful run selling button accessories and supporting the livelihood of her fellow Baao residents, De Los Santos is raring to expand her product line.
She plans to establish a shirt line in Manila soon, after developing embellished shirts designed with discarded lace and linen.
For now, however, De Los Santos and her team are "quite fulfilled" with their project of making trinkets out of buttons. As F.A.R.M.-ers say, they are grateful from the "button of their hearts." Report and photos by Kristine Servando, abs-cbnNEWS.com/Newsbreak.
Thanks so much for featuring my article on your blog site, Ms. Bernadette! Hope to see you around soon po. Let me know about the embellished shirts! =)
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