Home owners here are buying reproductions of classic designer furniture at a fraction of the price
LIKE many Singaporean home owners, personal banker Karen Teo has furnished her five-room HDB flat in Sengkang with pieces of furniture that are well-known in the design world.
TIGHT BUDGET: Ms Karen Teo and Mr Jeremy Lee bought Arco lamp and Bombo stool lookalikes for their home in Sengkang. -- PHOTOS: BETTY CHUA FOR THE STRAITS TIMES, FLOSIn her bedroom is the ubiquitous arched stainless steel standing lamp. And in her living room, by the bar counter, stand two bar stools that often grace the pages of home decor magazines.
But while they look very much like the Arco lamp and the Bombo stool, they are not the real thing. They are lookalikes.
Ms Teo and her engineer husband Jeremy Lee, both 27, had a tight budget when they were furnishing their home three years ago. They set aside $30,000 for furnishings, including electronics.
To stretch their dollar, they hunted for bargains and found furniture shops in Sungei Kadut, where 'you can get designer-inspired pieces at a fraction of the price', she says.
Then, she bought her Arco lookalike for $440 and her bar stools for $99 each. An Arco lamp from Space Furniture at Millenia Walk costs $4,225, while a Bombo stool from X-tra Living at Park Mall costs $920.
'They were designer pieces that I wanted, but I didn't want to pay too much for them so this is the next best option,' she reasons.
As Singaporeans become more house-proud, home owners who covet designer pieces but do not have the budget for them are turning to more affordable reproductions.
The Arco lamp, by Italian designers Achille and Pier Giacomo Castiglioni, is one of the most copied items in the market, thanks to its distinctive design. Half the lighting shops that line Balestier Road and Geylang carry Arco lookalikes, mostly from China and Taiwan.
They look almost like the real McCoy, but there are differences. While the Arco uses Italian Carrera marble for its base, the cheaper alternatives use marble from China or India. Also, some arches are made of a circular stainless steel tube instead of a rectangular one.
Mr Aman Heng, general manager of Light Image Holdings which has a chain of lighting stores, says such pieces are popular with home owners who are not particular about whether the lamp is an original or a copy.
'They are happy just to have the same design,' says Mr Heng, 43. 'It also fits those with tight budgets.' His new shipment of Arco lookalikes will come in at the end of the month, and he says they will go for at least $600.
A spokesman for Lush in Upper Paya Lebar Road, which sells designer reproductions, says such items are also popular with interior designers who do up showflats, as 'they don't want to spend too much on the pieces'.
The store sells about 20 Arco copies a month, each going for $580. In comparison, Space Furniture sells about 200 to 250 Arco lamps a year.
At Dream Interiors in River Valley Road, a dealer for Knoll furniture, a Barcelona chair starts at $8,000. Compare this with a reproduction which costs $1,300, and it's not surprising that budget-conscious consumers opt for the cheaper one.
There is a reason the designer classics are costly.
Dream Interiors owner Shawn Tan says the high prices are due to the meticulous manufacturing process, the quality of materials used and, most importantly, the intellectual input from the designers.
Using German-born American architect Ludwig Mies van der Rohe's Barcelona chair as an example, Mr Tan, 37, points out that even though the chair was designed in 1929, it still looks modern today. That shows that the design was ahead of its time.
Physician Wong Tien Hua, who has several designer pieces such as an Eames surfboard table in his bungalow in Bukit Timah, says he buys only the real pieces even though they cost more.
'The quality is better and you're buying into the history as well,' says Dr Wong, 38.
Even in the reproduction industry, retailers say there are different grades of products. 'The copy must be as close to the original as possible,' says Mr P.C. Ee, 36, owner of Exit Design Studios, which carries a range of designer reproduction furniture.
Retailers say they tend to favour items from Australia, Thailand, Vietnam and Taiwan, which produce better reproductions. Some retailers avoid reproductions from China because they tend to be poorer copies, even though they are cheaper.
Mr Lorgan Wong, 49, owner of Lorgan's which carries second-hand and reproduction retro pieces, says he doesn't carry items from China because 'they are not close enough to the original'.
As for the legal implications of copyright breaches, the Intellectual Property Office of Singapore, which looks after intellectual property of individuals and companies, says it does not handle such matters.
Industry players say the copyright infringement issues against those who produce copies are usually undertaken by the respective companies' headquarters, which are mostly overseas.
Retailers that Life! spoke to say they make it a point to inform customers that the pieces are reproductions.
'We tell them these are not original pieces, so the price is much lower,' says Mr Ee.
As for copyright issues, retailers resort to two avenues to get around the problem.
'We cannot use the original names. Instead we give it a code number,' says Mr Ee.
Others, such as Lorgan's Mr Wong, use phrases such as 'Eames-style' or 'Eames-era' to describe a reproduction of a recliner.
The other method is to copy the design but use dimensions that are different from the original, such as making it slightly smaller. Some manufacturers also use different materials from the original.
Fighting back
THE manufacturers of the originals are understandably not happy to let reproductions flood the market.
Italian lighting manufacturer Flos, which makes the Arco lamp, has taken legal action worldwide against manufacturers of Arco lamp copies.
This includes sending a warning letter from the company's lawyer, as well as removing imitations from the market. Flos says most such cases have been with European retailers, and it has not taken any legal action in Singapore in the last five years.
A spokesman for the company says the hunt for imitation manufacturers is not easy because 'as soon as one manufacturer is discovered and stopped, a new one starts'.
Finland's Artek, which produces designer classics such as the Alvar Aalto Armchair 400, says it has also taken legal action against those who make copies of Artek pieces.
But a spokesman says 'legal action was costly and in the end it has no long-term effect', as imitation pieces still pop up. 'However, we have not given up. We just find other ways more effective than legal action,' he adds.
Artek wants to educate consumers on why they should buy originals.
It hopes that consumers will understand that Artek products have the quality to last through generations, and that it uses only materials that come from environmentally sustainable forests.
Still, that is not stopping Singaporeans from buying copies of the high-priced items.
Corporate communications manager Raymond Lim, who has an Arco lamp lookalike in his four-room HDB flat in Tiong Bahru, says he is not a 'designer furniture freak' but just loves tastefully designed pieces.
He first saw the Arco when he was 16, but didn't realise then that it was considered a designer classic. 'But I told myself I must have this lamp in my home one day,' he says.
Now 29, he bought a lookalike at a lighting shop in Balestier Road for a mere $200. 'It fits my budget. The brand is not important but the design must be appealing,' he says, of his Arco copy that is made in China.
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