A gilded affair

Interior designer Jonathan Matti, in late December, welcomed friends to a special dinner in Vetted, the creative space he founded in 2024. It was Matti’s way of showing gratitude to friends who had supported his new endeavor. 

It was a gilded Christmas dinner with Matti pulling all the stops to transform Vetted into a salon where his guests had delicacies and sipped no less than Cristal Champagne vintage 2018, lauded as one of the best vintages from the famed champagne house.

Dani Virata and Amanda de Guzman Debraux.Matti’s salon was done in his signature style, combining fine antiques with Philippine art and decor to encapsulate Vetted’s spirit and its founder’s commitment to timeless elegance.

A cozy lounge, for example, was set against a splendid 12-panel Ching Dynasty coromandel screen and flanked by a pair of lamps made from Satsuma vases from the Meiji Period. A pair of Piccola Papillo chairs by Naoto Fukasawa and a travertine table from the 1970s brought modernity to the setting. 

Fine samples of French period furniture drew the eye in another section: An elegant Napoleon III escritoire flushed against a gilded four-panel screen with bamboo motif from the 1930s. Atop the escritoire, Betsy Westendorp’s landscape from the 1980s was given prominence, resting on a French antique easel and warmly lit by a lamp made from antique candlestick holders. Next to it, works by 19th-century Filipino masters Juan Luna and  Felix Martinez hung on a wall together with an exquisite unsigned painting. 

Matti blended old and new in a dining nook staged in another section, pairing a modern glass-topped round table with 19th-century Chinese cane chairs purchased in the 1980s from Hong Kong’s legendary antiques purveyor Charlotte Horstmann. All around, the interior designer assembled holiday accents made from fresh pine leaves, abaca, gilded orbs, etc., for a festive touch.  

Though filled with precious objects, Matti’s settings still evoked warmth and a relaxing mood. It’s the reason guests stayed on to chit-chat while uniformed waiters kept the champagne flowing well into the night. 

Buoyed by the turnout, Matti played the effervescent host who kept the jovial mood and saw to his guests’ comfort. His gilded dinner wasn’t just for his friends’ loyal patronage. It was also a celebration of Vetted’s successful first-year run as an alternative space for the finest art, antiques and contemporary objects from around the world. Vetted is all set for the New Year with an exciting calendar that starts with an exhibition by a noted Bay Area Filipino artist in February 2025.