We won’t blame if you if you've taken note of every little gesture and suspicious bit of dialogue, leaving no stone unturned in the hopes of solving this season’s big mystery. We all know the devil is in the details for The White Lotus
LOOK: A Kenneth Cobonpue Sofa Spotted in "The White Lotus" Season 3
While we already had an ‘Uy, Pilipins’ moment when we discovered Sritala and Jim Hollinger’s luxe Bangkok villa is actually owned by a Filipina and her Thai husband , it turns out there’s one more proudly Pinoy detail during their scenes you must keep an eye out for.
We don’t expect you to catch it on your first watch, though. (Trust us, it took us a few rewatches to even notice). In fact, you might need to pause and zoom in during the scene where Rick (Walton Goggins), Frank (Sam Rockwell), Sritala (Patravadi Mejudhon), and Jim (Scott Glenn) are seated across each other discussing what could be the revival of Sritala's film career—and in Hollywood at that.
While the scene was painful to watch (seriously, don't Rick and Frank have a gc for this?), awkwardness aside, you can rest easy knowing the foursome were pretty comfortable while filming this moment, seated as they were on sofas crafted by Filipino hands and designed by Cebu's Kenneth Cobonpue.
Who is Kenneth Cobonpue?
If you look closely, there's no mistaking it: that sofa set is Cobonpue coded. Its lines and woven structure blend traditional craftsmanship with modern comfort— a hallmark of the acclaimed designer's style.
Kenneth is known for incorporating natural elements in his work, a nod to his humble beginnings working in their family furniture business in Cebu. It was this early exposure to traditional furniture making that led to his mastery of the use of natural materials like bamboo, abaca, and rattan to create unique silhouettes that exude quiet elegance. This eventually landed him the title of "rattan's first great virtuouso," which is how TIME Magazine once described him.
His works have been showcased in prestigious exhibitions worldwide, and has earned him accolades including five Japan Good Design Awards, the grand prize at the Singapore International Design Competition, the Design for Asia Award of Hong Kong, the French Coup de Coeur Award, and multiple honors from the Industrial Design Society of America, to name a few.
The sofa set you see in The White Lotus Episode 7 joins a long list of Cobonpue pieces that have found their way into contemporary pop culture. Among his most notable creations are his Yoda chair, whose back is reminiscent of blades of grass, and the Voyage Bed which was featured in Maroon 5's Never Gonna Leave This Bed music video. His designs have appeared on the sets of films and TV shows like CSI, Oceans 13, Suits and many more. Celebrities such as Brad Pitt, Queen Sophia of Spain, and Queen Rania of Jordan are known to have his pieces in their homes. Suffice it to say, his designs are fit for royalty, whether in Hollywood or real life monarchies.
When SPOT.ph reached out to Kenneth Cobonpue, he said he was quite surprised to find out his pieces were on the penultimate episode. He learned about it thru another Cebuano designer, Neil Felipp, who told him about the "guest appearance," even sending him a snapshot for proof. “That sofa set must be more than a decade old,” he told SPOT.ph. It must have reached Thailand during the time he was selling furniture in Bangkok via his friend and fellow designer Budji Layug. "Or maybe the owners imported it from Cebu themselves," Kenneth guessed.
The designer confirmed to Spot the pieces were part of his 2013 Matilda Collection, which is a set of sofas and outdoor seating. Seen in the episode were two Matilda easy armchairs in Naranja Brown, and a Matilda sofa in the same colorway. But before you go out and search for these pieces for your own homes, be warned that they can be very pricey. Consignment websites list one armchair at roughly USD2,500 (P143, 365) while the Matilda sofa costs around USD 4,800 to 5000 or P275,600. With a bit of math, the three-piece set featured in The White Lotus costs around P575,000.
So how exactly did this almost P600,000 sofa set end up in The White Lotus? While many pieces of film furniture are either built specifically for the project or loaned by the designer, it's a different case for the Matilda set featured in Episode 7. In fact, the pieces weren’t even supposed to be in the episode at all.
In Spot's interview with Irma Thepsoparn, owner of the villa where the episode was filmed, she confirmed that the three-piece set has long been part of Siri Sala's interiors and not part of the custom set built by Mike White’s The White Lotus team. As it turns out, the Filipina hotelier also didn't spend much on the Cobonpue furniture either.
"The sofa set was originally used to decorate a show model unit a friend of mine bought. When it came time to redecorate, they decided to donate the sofa to charity because they probably didn't recognize Cobonpue designs. In Thailand, these pieces would have gone to a temple. So when I saw the pieces and confirmed that they were indeed Cobonpue designs, I asked my friend if I could have the sofa instead," Irma says. Luckily, her friend said yes and the delivery was rerouted to Siri Sala.
So yes, one man’s dispensables really did become another man's treasure—rescued just in time. A pair of matching coffee tables didn’t make the cut, however, but such is the reality of a near-miss: you win some, you lose some.
*This story originally appeared on Spot.ph. Minor edits have been made by the Preview.ph editors.
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