Storytelling with Textile Artisans in Cape Town

storytelling with textile artisans in cape town

storytelling with textile artisans in cape town

fabricnation

A TEXTILE DESIGNER, ARTIST AND ACTIVIST Jane Solomon describes herself as a textile designer, or a textile artist, but some people also define her as a textile activist. Jane runs Fabricnation as a solo business, involving Jann as another textile designer. The name of the brand, Fabricnation, was an idea of Jann, who collaborates from New York; they wanted to communicate that they work from different nations, as Fabric of the Nations. After Jann left from Cape Town in 1994, the two set up the business in 1997. At that time, they were looking at the fabric of the nation not from a patriotic perspective, but with an optimistic approach towards a better nation. The logo was a redesign of an old sticker, picked in a second hand shop.

It represents a flag made out of fabric, which refers also to political protests, in which they were involved in the 80s. JJ stands for Jane and Jann – that’s how people used to call the two designers – and the slogan reads ‘Handmade in South Africa’.

Jane studied graphic design until 1985 and then she attended a short course for three months at Ruth Prowse School of Art in Woodstock, where she learned textile printing. For her 4th year project, she created a textile design company, called Fabrication, a name quite similar to the final and current brand. At that times, bringing textiles into an art school was considered quite derogatory, since textiles were perceived as decorative and not as art, while nowadays there is much textiles (and embroidery) work in the art field.

SETTING UP AN INDEPENDENT STUDIO After graduation, Jane did not want to work for an agency, therefore she set up a studio with Jann in Loop Street, Cape Town. They thought no high investments were required to have a business up and running and make an earning out of it.

While studying they had started hand-painting on printed fabrics, during holidays, in Jane’s father garage. They used to sell their products to their friends, and since they received good appreciation, Jane and Jann decided to also sell from their studio in Loop Street. From there, with the passing of time, they shipped products to the UK, Netherlands, and this has also brought them to travel abroad. In the 80s in South Africa there were no major brands, and some people used to go to London and buy unique products. Jane has always made her clothes by herself or bought second hand garments. Afterwards, she realised that by outsourcing production, she could have more time to spend on design, while also making higher quantity of products. Initially, Jane and Jann set up the business together, but then Jane took ownership of the business and pays royalties for Jann’s designs. The two work together in Cape Town for short periods, but most of the work is done online, via email. Jane and Jann are creatively very connected, having worked together for so long. At the beginning, Jane and Jann were quite cutting-edge, appreciated by a lot of musicians, for example. Jane archives the work they did together in a photo-book; she appreciates how things acquire importance over time.

EVERY ACT OF STRUGGLE IS A CULTURAL ACT In the 80s, Jane and Jann used to do political printing on banners and t-shirts as part of a Loosely Affiliated Group (LAG), a group of art students, bottom-up cultural workers, whose social life was about using art forms to get people involved in protests. At that time, the main fight was against apartheid in South Africa, the LAG believed that every act of struggle is a cultural act.

For example, they designed t-shirts for the antimilitary End Conscription Campaign “Our Boys Your Toys”, fighting against the military service, which took many boyfriends out of the country; this t-shirt actually got banned. Another print reads “Casspir, No Friendly Ghost”, as a campaign against the ‘Casspirs’, the army vehicles going to townships and shooting civilians.

PERSONAL INVESTIGATION & EXPLORATION Jane pursues diverse activities (i.e. group facilitation for income generation and personal growth using body mapping and art processes) The linking thread is creativity, as a way to engage herself and other people. As a textile designer, Jane believes you can use anything as a starting point, even the HIV virus. Jane developed a textile design inspired by her work with people living with HIV. The ‘Positive Power’ print (which was exhibited in Cape Town’s City Hall) represents the HIV virus; it celebrates the positive spirit of the women Jane worked with. This design was embellished with fine beadwork by a friend.

Sometimes Jane feels held back by briefing design work to herself (within Fabricnation), whilst the body mapping workshops are generally commissioned by external organisations, such as Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), the University of Cape Town (UCT), Cape Peninsula University of technology (CPUT), the African Center for Healthy Cities (ACC) and REPSSI Canada.

Fabricnation’s designs are informed by Jane’s personal investigation and exploration, rather than following trends. Although produced in quantity, such products are conceived more as art pieces, whose design construction and creation involves a lot of thought.

SOMETIMES, IT FEELS ISOLATED TO BE INDEPENDENT Lately, Jane has not been much engaged in facilitation and body mapping, but she is using this time as an opportunity to focus on her own textile business. Jane admits she is experiencing a transition phase: she loves Fabricnation and her designs, but she does not feel to have enough energy to invest in marketing and networking, considering their importance in the current highly competitive design world. Jane is aware of the need to grow her business and earn a living, but she is not driven by earning money.

Jane enjoys having the time and space of being an independent entrepreneur, but at the same time she feels quite isolated. When she feels understimulated, she enjoys going to meetings with other people and crossing boundaries.

Overall, Jane’s temperament is more one of an artist, working alone in her own studio, but she acknowledges she could benefit from outsourcing the admin and delivery tasks to someone else.

Jane is a member of the Craft & Design Institute (CDI) since its inception. She has many artists and designers as friends, but no formalised collaborations at the moment. She has recently collaborated with someone in experimenting with making textile pigments with ochre and clay, and at Decorex 2016, she discussed with Bridget Henderson from Cowgirlblues the opportunity to meet and together experiment with wool and ink.

BUILDING LONG-LASTING RELATIONSHIPS Besides textile designers Jane and Jann, Fabricnation involves Marcia Marcus, who manages the Cut Make and Trim (CMT) in her workspace in the BoKaap, Cape Town, from where she gets commissions also for other local artisanal businesses; another woman also takes on some cutting from Fabricnation’s workshop.

Jane is the production manager of the printing done by Imaterial, the only local printer taking on small orders. Out of the few printers still active in Cape Town, Remo Gorlei from Imaterial has always been very supportive towards artisanal businesses, as their small orders help him filling gaps in production, optimising the production line. Such work collaborations around Fabricnation are drawn out of necessity, shaped

by Jane herself, who believes in the importance of good and long-lasting relationships, built through professional and reliable behaviours, at every scale of the business, contributing to shape a supportive network of people.

DRAWING ON THE SURROUNDINGS Friendly, conversation pieces, and natural embellishment are the three keywords that Jane uses to best describe Fabricnation’s work. Jane is constantly drawing on what surrounds her to develop designs that reflect a local aesthetic. In Cape Town there is a big tourist market; for bread and butter sales Fabricnation makes products that are interesting and appealing to tourists.

For example, there is a print of the urban plan of Cape Town, with the location of Fabricnation’s studio marked on it. The ‘Champion’ design represents South African basic consumer goods, such as the packaging of lentil beans, a strong local identity, but interpreted in a contemporary style. Jane sets riddles, tasks for herself, such as how to integrate elements from her childhood with her African experience into her designs.

For instance, she drew inspiration from British Sanderson’s Chelsea roses print. She scanned a piece of fabric from the sofa (the antimacassar of her mother’s sofa), added a watercolour effect on it, and tried to combine it with the Xhosa culture, using the Umbraco pattern, which is also used in traditional clothing. She then worked on upscale, combining such a pattern with the Chelsea roses, a motif that she had never associated with, apart from seeing it every day in her childhood. Finally, working towards the exhibition at Decorex 100% Textiles, Jane decided to give herself a deadline; this was a real commitment from start to finish.

WORKING BY HAND, AT LARGE SCALE To keep herself up-to-date, Jane visits many exhibitions, travels, does online searches about international trends, and attends courses, like one on natural dyes at the Cape Town Weavers Guild.

She uses a sketchbook, drawing and writing quite a lot. For instance, integration and not assimilation was the inspiration for one of her designs, in order not to make one culture dominate the other, but to create a balance. Jane feels she puts too much thought in her designs, and she would benefit from having someone making the business running, while Jane could focus on developing art projects. However, Jane admits that she needs more confidence to showcase her artwork; in the past she participated in some art shows, not on her own, but as a collective exhibition of art pieces.

Jane enjoys working by hand, at large scale, because at the computer she feels it is difficult to visualise what the design is going to look like when printed. In her workshop, she has got a cutting table, scissors, and brushes (used for design work).

At home she works at the computer, while in the studio she prefers not getting ‘distracted’ by the digital world, besides replying to emails from her smartphone. At home, she uses photographs and then edits them into graphic designs, which are printed out, cut and pasted. The whole process encompasses getting inspiration, designing by hand, cutting and pasting, editing the final design at the computer, delivering it to Imaterial for approval of a print sample, preparing the screen or rotary printing, and choosing colour trials.

THERE ARE VERY FEW MILLS LEFT HERE Jane buys sets of woven fabrics produced in the Eastern Cape by Cowie Trading, previously known as Da Gama. The fibres they use are 100% cotton as well as blends of cotton and linen. The supplier declares the fabrics to be made locally, but we think they are basically imported from Pakistan and just finished in South Africa. In fact, there are very few mills left here. Imaterial supplies the printing, using inks which are water based (made of a base and a pigment).While digitalisation is allowing printing of photographs into fabrics and making textile design more mainstream, Jane follows an old-fashion artisanal way of putting the repeat pattern into the design. At Imaterial, Jane gets advice on whether to choose screen or rotary printing for specific products. With screen printing you are limited to a 36 meters length as per the dimension of the table. In a way, rotary printing is quicker (allowing printing 600 meters in 2 days versus screen printing, which can take up to 2 weeks Jane tends to produce high quantity fabrics in order to minimise manufacturing hassle, and prefers selling fabrics by the meter, although it is sometimes easier for her to sell finished products. Jane tries to use all her off-cuts, for instance to cover books, or make hand stitched patch bags, as well as fabric swatches. Jane collects the waste samples from the cleaning of the rotary printing machine, and has produced some bags out of this material.

BUILDING CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIPS Jane does not as yet have an online shop, but communication occurs through emails. Jane likes when customers come and visit her studio, where there is no competition unlike in shops; this contributes to build customer relationships, and it creates an old-fashioned experience, providing Jane with feedback for future product developments, and the customer with a handmade tailored service. Generally, from the website, people can make an appointment to visit the workspace, have a look at the fabric range, make an order, have it printed and delivered. The main customers are interior designers working on small or big products. Sometimes, people make an order even without seeing the fabric; however, if the customer can’t make it to the studio, Jane posts them a little sample. Products are also sold at local retailers, such as Fabricate and Heartworks at the Watershed, The Old Biscuit Mill and Garden Center. Most of the shop owners are friends or people Jane knows, and she is happy to do consignment for 30 days. As packaging, Jane uses brown paper, as well as some offcuts as threads for finishing the packaging and sometimes she also adds Fabricnation stickers on the fabric.

Because the product is already well designed, the packaging can be very simple, nothing fancy, to avoid waste generation. Jane is aware that people relate to the stories around the designs and the telling of these completes the experience. In this regard, Fabricnation’s story is communicated on the website, or verbally if the customer visits the studio in person.

HANDFRAME IMPROVEMENTS When the large frames (enabling the production of approximately 6 stockings at once) took off, small handframes could not compete because they were narrower and could produce only one stocking at once. At those times, the Luddites were English frame knitters (or self- employed weavers who feared the end of their trade) who smashed these frames, as an act of protest against newly developed labour-economizing technologies, primarily between 1811 and 1816.

However, if caught breaking the handframes, they were deported to Australia for several years, and may never return. That could be the first link to Australia, in about 1800s. Then, because deporting the Luddites became too expensive, it was decided to hang them in Nottingham instead.

One of Hurt’s handframes had new woodwork at this time.

When Mr Hurt started working in the factory there were only handframes; probably the oldest machine they still have in the factory is 400 years old. Nowadays they use them only as demonstration, to teach students how to use them, but these machines are very delicate and need respectful handling.

ENVISIONING TO BECOME A LOVED BRAND Jane imagines her sustainable future would mean becoming a ‘loved’ brand, selling more products to generate income, and sustain her artistic exploration. This would allow making her own, but also other people’s designs, and hiring someone else to manage the business. Besides, this would allow her to free up time for herself and for pursuing her own interests, such as facilitation of group work.

Jane aligns with the government push for local job creation to overcome the issue of unemployment.

Moreover, flexible production contributes to raise prices, but according to Jane it also allows small businesses to grow. Repurposing waste fabrics is a way through which Fabricnation intends to achieve environmental sustainability. Jane is interested in exploring alternative and anticorporate models of managing the business, for instance through the company Get Stuff Done.

Although slow fashion allows Jane to create interesting one-off fabrics, price is a barrier for slow consumption, especially considering the small demand for it in South Africa. Jane is not keen on digital printing, and she believes that the handmade will become of more and more value in the future. She is also interested in exploring new fabrics that control heat, or natural dyes, for example. Although she has been a microentrepreneur and solo artisan for her whole working life, she acknowledges the importance of collaborating with other artisans, especially engaging in collective showcases, and working with community organisations.

indigi designs

GLOBAL LIFESTYLE BRAND, MADE IN SA Natalie Du Toit was born in Cape Town but grew up in Australia, surrounded by Aborigenous culture. Coming from two different countries, Natalie wanted to bring these two stories and heritage, together. The result is Indigi Designs, a global lifestyle brand with a South African signature, influenced by indigenous ethnic accents. The logo comes from the dot paintings of the Xhosa and Aborigenous paintings.

A SELF-TAUGHT TEXTILE DESIGNER Natalie studied interior design at the Boston House College (BHC) in Woodstock, in 1997.

Textile design was really self-taught. Natalie does not print on fabrics by herself, but she has learned all the technical issues through making. She was a buyer for a furniture retailer in South Africa; however, since ever she has loved putting fabrics together, and she is passionate about African artwork. Afterwards, she became managing director of a deco production company, manufacturing lightening products. There, she developed a range of products and she was meant to buy this factory, employing 50-60 staff.

However, she then became pregnant for the second time, and her husband recommended her not to buy this big company, yet to launch her own new brand, starting small. Although this was a tough decision, she founded Indigi Designs.

LAUNCHED AT DESIGN INDABA 2011 With 5 printed fabrics and some pieces of furniture, she launched the company at the Design Indaba expo in 2011, where she received an amazing response from the market. Compared to other local brands, Indigi Designs has a very geometric and simplistic style; its signature lies in working with bold patterns. Contemporary, bold and ethnic are the three keywords that best represent Indigi Designs.

Natalie started working from home, when she was pregnant of her second child. She started manufacturing in her garage: first in half garage, then in two thirds, then she took over the living room, and she expanded until the point that Natalie’s husband recommended Indigi Designs to have its own premises. Therefore, Natalie hired a space in Woodstock, where she set up a workshop and a little showroom in 2013.

In January 2016 Natalie decided to split the showroom and the factory down the road.

BEING IN A CONSTANT LEARNING PLACE All her background was useful for Natalie to set up her business; she feels confident, but she is still learning. Natalie believes that business people should never be too confident or complacent; otherwise, that’s where competition begins. She believes that the brand is well established now, but maybe it could improve in marketing (e.g. photography, styling, and online catalogue).

Natalie has a business mentor and a business coach, with whom she works on her goals to be achieved, to build a healthy business. Natalie also tries to surround herself with a network of other business people who she trusts. In fact, it is important for her to have a support system and be in a constant learning place. For example, she finds Jane Solomon from Fabricnation as a really nice person to chat with and sharing issues; Natalie really admires her. Otherwise, the South African design industry is very snotty, it’s all about celebrity culture, according to Natalie, who tends not to go much to local networking events.

Natalie is member of CDI, and Vital Voices, an American organisation for female entrepreneurs in developing countries, through which she attended courses about business management.

Natalie was selected for the EinH, Entrepreneurs in Handicraft fellowship course, together with only other two women in South Africa. The programme was about teaching the fundamentals of a business, like vision and mission. Natalie is also member of the Cape Chambers of Businesses, and the Business Women’s Association, both in South African.

IT TOOK TIME TO BUILD GOOD RELATIONS Indigi Design is quite a small business. Natalie is the designer and manager of the company. Basically, she is involved in everything (from admin, to packing, labelling, drilling, managing production, delivery). This has been an incredible learning experience, but also frustrating. As the business grew, responsibilities got shared. Nowadays, Natalie works with other six people. It has been a business journey to build these collaborations.

Natalie started with a businessperson doing the admin for her. She outsourced the CMT, until she got production volumes high enough to hire a seamstress, who used to do the cutting as well.

Then she hired also a picker and someone to assemble the products. Now that Indigi Design has a showroom and a factory, it needs people working at both venues. Predominantly, they were always girls, until March 2016, when Natalie hired a man to bring a different energy to the team.

It took some time to build such relationships, but now it feels everything is well put together.

For instance, it took many months for Natalie to teach the seamstress how to work to the quality standards she wanted. The two ladies in the showroom are responsible for the sales and online communication; while four people work in the factory. Natalie likes being quite relaxed and wants to create a happy environment to work in, with an open policy, so that staff members are encouraged to talk freely if they have any issues or concerns.

DESIGNING & MANAGING THE BUSINESS Running a business is a separate job from designing; it takes so much time to design an idea and make it happen. Natalie tends to launch a new collection every year. Due to the seasonal market in Cape Town, during the summer, it is easier for Natalie to develop new ideas, but putting them into manufacturing is actually better over winter, when production is full. There are phases when Natalie feels good at looking at trends, and keeps herself updated, but sometimes she feels overloaded by information, and she rather prefers doing things. She hangs things on her board at home, over time she elaborates her ideas, and builds a narrative behind her products.

Indigi Design is inspired by traditional African cloth, layered with African shapes. For example, the print called Kuba has shapes inspired by the traditional African Kuba cloth. Another print is inspired by the Ndebele patterns that are printed on houses. Another design is inspired by the shwe shwe pattern. For the new collection, Natalie is researching about biomimicry. Besides Africa, Natalie is also inspired by global cultures, which she approaches through her travels, twice or three times a year. She exhibits at Mason Objet in Paris, which is the main show for the business, but also in Japan and London. She usually goes to the same places, and she is going again to Frankfurt for Ambiente.

LIMITED RESOURCES AVAILABLE LOCALLY Indigi Design buys woven fabrics from Cowie Trading in Eastern Cape; white fabrics made of 100% cotton, and other blends of linen and cotton. Cowie Trading is the same supplier for all the local businesses; they used to produce entirely locally, but now they import the fibres spun into yarns in the Far East and they finish the fabric locally. Natalie used to buy fabrics from the SBH mill, but it closed down in 2012. It is therefore challenging to differentiate own products, when competitors use the same base cloth. Natalie is looking to use the Hemp fabric, which is organic, made of a sustainable source, although it is also imported from the Far East, and its price is double.

Natalie has already tried printing on Hemp, and it is a really beautiful fabric, with which she would like to develop a limited higher quality collection, to differentiate her business. The leather used for some products comes from a local supplier.

Some of the wire used is recycled. The wood comes from sustainable sources (ash, oak) in South Africa.

IT IS CHALLENGING TO PRINT IN CAPE TOWN It is quite challenging to print in Cape Town due to the very limited resources available. A lot of the local textile businesses use also the same printer, Imaterial, but they have to create their own identity. Imaterial receives so many orders and customers, that it has a monopoly on the local market. Someone has recommended Natalie to start printing by herself, but this is not her core production, and she could not afford purchasing all the printing equipment.

The equipment in the factory is very simple; they have got sewing machine, overlocker, and sewing tables. Setting up an internal CMT team is an expensive overhead, which requires high production volumes to be covered, but it was a necessary step. Nowadays, Indigi Designs can offer CMT services to other people.

A WIDE LIFESTYLE RANGE Indigi Designs does not make only textiles, but also homeware. By layering fabric, wood and metal wire, such furniture pieces convey Indigi Designs’ story. Offering a wide product range is what differentiates Indigi Designs. Natalie creates shapes, and applies them to textiles, but also metalwork, so that fabric and wire talk together, conceptualising the whole range. The product offer spans from cushions to tea towels, napkins, bags, aprons, oven gloves, laptop covers, but also upholstered goods, which are fully assembled in the factory.

SIMPLE PIECES, WHICH LAST LONGER Small products (e.g. place holders) are made of offcuts; scrap fabrics are also donated to upholsters to use it for stuffing. Natalie admits that it is difficult to predict the product life for long; some products (like furniture pieces) last longer, while others are discontinuous. Some customers have been buying the same products for five years. If they want, customers can return the products and have the metal wire changed in colour or repaired.

SALES ARE VERY FLUCTUATING Production volumes vary a lot, but it may be around 3000-4000 pieces per month; however, with only four factory employees, it is legitimate to consider it as an artisanal business. The main expenses are rent and salaries; the cost of fabrics is rising due to the currency devaluation, which is affecting import. Product prices range from 30 ZAR for a plate holder to a chair sold for 8000-9000 ZAR. Sales are very fluctuating, and sometimes the business is self-sustainable, while other times there are overheads from having to pay the rent for both the showroom and the factory. Indigi Designs’ products are sold, besides online, in the showroom, but also in two retailers in the Watershed, in a shop in town, and in one stand within a shopping mall in Johannesburg.

MOST OF THE INCOME COMES FROM EXPORT At the moment Natalie is busy with the packaging project, putting printed cardboard bands on the napkins and tea towels, and then sold in a branded white shopping bag. The cardboard ribbon will allow printing information on it, in order to add more value to the product.

Communication happens through social media (Facebook, Instagram, Twitter), the website, international and local shows, and word of mouth.

The target customer is the middle market, with appreciation for the handmade. Indigi Designs have a few customers in Australia; this is an area Natalie would like to grow into, through export.

Currently, 60% of the business comes from export.

IT’S ALL ABOUT PEOPLE, PLANET, PROFIT A sustainable future for Natalie means framing a vision and making it possible. It is all about having a purpose, positively contributing to people (staff, customers, suppliers), profit (achieving economic sustainability) and planet (being sensitive about the environment). Passion, purpose, persistence, performance, pay off are Indigi Designs’ drivers.

Everything they do here needs to address a meaningful purpose, telling a story, and educate people about it, to reach a global market.

shine shine

AN EXPLOSION OF AFRICAN FABRICS From her home in BoKaap, the Muslim neighbourhood in Cape Town, Tracy Rushmere since 2007 has managed her business Shine Shine, a creative explosion of African-infused fabrics. Besides studying Politics, Economics and English, Tracy has always been passionate about tribal and folk art, having travelled around Africa to buy fabrics. Following her interest in textiles, she has gained confidence in the sector over time, and she manages all the aspects of the business on her own.

A FRUITFUL SYNERGY WITH HEIDI The designs are developed through a fruitful synergy with Heidi Chisholm, an independent graphic designer, originally from Cape Town but currently living and working in New York where she runs Extra Fancy. Living far apart makes no difference, because they can collaborate via email and Skype. Tracy sends her a lot of images, and when it comes to design, they have done a lot of research. According to Tracy, Heidi has a particular sensibility, is a brilliant designer.

The way she thinks is completely off the wall. It goes backwards and forwards until you have a beautiful cloth.

SHINING, COLOURFUL, QUIRKY The products are designed as a quirky expression of political, religious and commemorative cloths from Africa, resulting in fun and light textiles, making people smile. The products are not overthought and that is what makes them so lovely, according to Tracy. Overall, Shine Shine celebrates the way Tracy sees Africa: the shine and the colour are a big part of it, and the quirky expression. The influence comes from different places. What Tracy has always loved in Africa is that people wear their style as a statement.

IT MAKES SENSE TO BE HERE Tracy used to have a showroom and a much bigger office where she used to keep all the fabric, but it was a waste. It makes more sense for her now to be here. Her husband’s photographic studio is right next door to where she used to be, so he can store the bulk of her fabrics, and when she needs a new roll, she doesn’t need to keep it all at home.

COLLABORATION WITH CMT Through word of mouth, Tracy has built a great collaboration with one seamstress; for a long time, she has done the CMT from her home.

She is not employed by Tracy; she brings the products and Tracy pays her; that’s how it goes.

One person is mostly enough for doing the CMT; she used to work in a factory, so she has speed.

She just works for Shine Shine, so Tracy does not have to wait much; for instance, once there was an order for 60 cushions, and in five days she had done it, which was fine for Tracy.

LACK OF LOCAL SUPPORT Tracy is a member of CDI, although not very active, and does not receive any support from the Cape Town Fashion Council, or other local organisations. She collaborates more with international partners, like in the case of SAWA Shoes, an African brand making shoes using local rubber and leather, for which Shine Shine provided the design to be printed on the leather of a show collection sold in a pop-up shop in Paris.

A COLLECTIVE SUPPORT SYSTEM In the past, Tracy was a member of the Threadcount collective, initiated by Heather Moore from Skinny LaMinx. This was a great initiative, a good support system with the purpose of sharing information across artisans, who did not compete with each other since every business was very different. If Tracy needed information, Heather would give it to her, and vice versa. They used to share whatever they needed to.

CHALLENGING RESOURCE CONSTRAINTS Surviving in the South African textile industry is incredibly difficult. Tracy emphasises the challenge of running a textile business in Cape Town due to resource constraints; in fact, the fabrics (a cotton-linen blend) supplied by Cowie Trading have inconstant quality. Suddenly, everything has changed; Cowie Trading does not weave the fabric anymore but imports it from the Far East.

The cotton-linen percentage isn’t the same, but there is too much texture in the fabric, and the design doesn’t fit well on it, but Tracy needs a flat weave. Also, the full coverage (in five colours) rotary printing is also problematic due to the closure of local factories. For instance, Printworks went out of business due to the mill closing down. For 18-24 months Tracy didn’t print at all; she now prints with a South African company, as she wasn’t prepared to print offshore.

BEING HER OWN PRODUCTION MANAGER Tracy is the production manager, in her own time.

She does not focus on how much she makes, but she tends to have a print run every two months or so.

She sends the designs and signs the prints off.

When she does a range of backpacks, she takes them to a local factory specialising in making backpacks, which requests a minimum of 100, which is not a small amount for Tracy. Hats and caps are produced elsewhere. The CMT does mostly cushions and purses; she comes every Saturday, bringing stock and Tracy gives her what she needs. The first trays were done in Cape Town, but the factory stopped, and they can no longer be produced locally since the tray mould couldn’t be found by the new owners, so they are all made in China now. A local company is going to take over the production of cork placemats; they will get the design and they will do the rest, while Tracy will get a royalty.

A COMPLETE PRODUCT RANGE The core part of the business are the fabrics, but Tracy likes developing additional products to complete the range for retailers (i.e. backpacks, hats, caps, purses, tin trays, cushions).

The designs, targeted to customers of all ages, are mostly printed, always in different colours, on fabrics sold per meter. Any little strips of production waste are reused to make smaller products (e.g. purses are made out of leftovers from cushion production).

THE SOUTH AFRICAN MARKET IS SEASONALE The business is economically self-sustainable.

Tracy sells well locally, but she also exports a lot.

Her international market is consistent, while the South African one is seasonal. For international sales Tracy sends a quote for the costs before taking the order. She never has a problem.

There is no Shine Shine shop, and sales are not available online either, because the exchange rate is different, and that would make things more complicated. Tracy also sells from home, at the same price as the retailer, otherwise it wouldn’t be fair on them. Retailers have a mix of everything.

The fabric and the printing are the main costs.

Fabrics are sold at 400 ZAR per meter, the cushion covers’ prices are about the same, 395 ZAR. Placemats and tin trays are cheaper, the little purses are sold at 60 ZAR, while a little make-up purse costs 120 ZAR.

HANDFRAME IMPROVEMENTS When the large frames (enabling the production of approximately 6 stockings at once) took off, small handframes could not compete because they were narrower and could produce only one stocking at once. At those times, the Luddites were English frame knitters (or self- employed weavers who feared the end of their trade) who smashed these frames, as an act of protest against newly developed labour-economizing technologies, primarily between 1811 and 1816.

However, if caught breaking the handframes, they were deported to Australia for several years, and may never return. That could be the first link to Australia, in about 1800s. Then, because deporting the Luddites became too expensive, it was decided to hang them in Nottingham instead.

One of Hurt’s handframes had new woodwork at this time.

When Mr Hurt started working in the factory there were only handframes; probably the oldest machine they still have in the factory is 400 years old. Nowadays they use them only as demonstration, to teach students how to use them, but these machines are very delicate and need respectful handling.

SMALL IS SUSTAINABLE Tracy acknowledges that her weakness lies in social media use; she just potters along. Her website is quite current, it feels like Shine Shine feels. Private customers can come to her studio to discuss, but Tracy doesn’t advertise that.

Overall, it is her own aware choice not to optimise the marketing because she doesn’t want the business to be bigger than herself. Small is the perfect size for her business, to keep it sustainable.

skinny laminx

A SELF-TAUGHT DESIGNER & ILLUSTRATOR Skinny LaMinx is a business making products using textiles, as well as other design-related products. Heather Moore is a self-taught designer and illustrator. She studied English, Drama and Teaching. She then has worked for ten years in illustrations, as well as writing and art directing textbooks for the education industry; she did a master on the subject. For a long-term project, she developed a lot of reading books, which sold very well, and she received royalties for them, which gave her a bit of freedom to be economically viable.

After she did her best contribution to the sector, she decided to go for a change, and she set up Skinny LaMinx. The name of the business is the nickname of Heather’s son’s cat, called Monkey, but is very skinny and a real minx.

Heather started the blog in 2006 and online sales in 2007, while the shop opened in 2012.

The business is now well-established, but it still needs new markets, improvements in marketing, efficiency – when possible – not by squeezing people, but not wasting anything. The quality control role has been implemented since the beginning and has helped in terms of efficiency, but it is very time consuming: everything is checked before it goes out of the business. This is especially due to the fact that sales are mostly international, and it would be expensive to do returns.

ENJOYMENT IS WHAT’S IMPORTANT It all started with Heather wanting to design and make authentic cushion covers to be sold online, until she realised that there was a business involved. When Pearl Thompson joined as business partner, it was challenging because there were no other people involved. Then, they realised the importance of receiving inputs from more people to make the business viable.

The important side of the business is its creative side, the design and the making, but also having involved a lot of other people, and being responsible for a lot of other people’s livelihoods.

The value lies in having created a space where everybody enjoys working and feels invested in its story, with pride. Most of the people were hired through word of mouth. The structure of the business allows everybody to take ownership and responsibility of her own role, and to follow a growth path. ‘Enjoyment is what’s important’ was their motto for one year; it was important to make decisions based on what they would enjoy doing or not.

People love the designs, but the story adds a lot to them. The whole Scandinavian design influence is now much more widespread than it was a couple of years ago, when Skinny LaMinx started proposing it, and at the same time the design aesthetics has evolved. However, people get really involved when they know the story behind the product – Heather’s and the team’s story – the design made in South Africa, and when they come and visit the premises of the business. This is the value proposition of Skinny LaMinx.

MID-CENTURY, SCANDI, AFRICAN CHIC The designs by Skinny LaMinx are all about ‘mid-century, Scandi-inspired, Japanese-crazed pattern and colour, with a dose of African chic thrown in for good measure’. The cultural values they convey are: Scandinavian, Japanese, and African, and the three keywords that best describe the brand are mid-century, simplicity, chic.

Heather always wanted to be Japanese when she was a child; she loves the care and attention within their special culture. Her auntie’s best friend was child of a Swedish family grown in South Africa; they lived in a house, which looked very clean, with a whole Scandinavian look, with pine trees, wild flowers, and a loom by which she used to weave. At that time in South Africa all the houses were full of synthetic products, with no care for quality, while that house was very different, and this was very influential in Heather’s background.

The fist design was based on Cape art; Heather never liked it, but them she matched it with Scandinavian design, developing a complete mix of local and international aesthetic, reacting to what surrounded her, with her own sensitivity.

Sometimes, customers recognise it as a foreign aesthetic, but not always. For Heather, local influences are difficult to describe; she follows a continuous process of absorption, not through a particular technique. This is also the way Skinny LaMinx innovates all the time. One year, the collection came out of a technique, printing with linocut rather than block printing, another technique previously learned by Heather in India.

EVERYBODY HAS A ROLE & SPACE TO GROW Skinny LaMinx involves Heather Moore (designer), Pearl Thompson (business partner), three ladies (seamstresses), other two ladies with their daughters (seamstresses, working from their home and studio in the BoKaap neighbourhood).

In the shop there are Janine (who manages the showroom), two people (who look after the e-shop), Melissa and Laura (who also work on the online shop, and assist Heather with design and communication); two to three people in the back office manage trade orders and production, and Sarah is responsible for production management.

Melissa was an intern and then was hired fulltime. After three years working here, she knows all the sides of the business, and whenever there is a question, everybody asks her. At Skinny LaMinx they tend to build long-lasting work relationships: Monica has worked here for long time, and Melinda since they opened the shop.

The biggest turnover they had was for the shop; this is because people have other jobs, and apply to work here in order to earn some extra money, until they get to a point where they become freelance, and they move out.

This is a horizontal community, where everybody has her own role, but also the space to grow; for instance, Heather and Pearl take every decision together. They have weekly meetings, where everybody explains what was done during the week, and discusses issues together. Collaboration is a key characteristic at Skinny LaMinx.

Apart from the two ladies in the BoKaap, the studio in Bree Street, Cape Town is the place where everybody works.

NOT VERY ACTIVE IN ORGANISATIONS At Skinny LaMinx they use sharing document software (Google Drive and Dropbox). Everybody (apart from Heather and Pearl) uses a Whatsapp group to communicate; they also communicate via email. They use a planning app called Todoist. com, where you can add emails as tasks to your list; this is very useful.

Skinny LaMinks is part of the Fine Living District, which was initiated by the owner of the shop Wild Olives, just off Bree Street; this is a group of like-minded design shops, who contributed to put together a map, and distributed it to guest houses and hotels. Skinny LaMinx is also part of a programme funded by the Dutch Government, which fosters import and aims to help the design side of the business, marketing, and they find some trade shows for them to participate. Skinny LaMinx is also a member of the Craft & Design Institute (CDI); Pearl attended a couple of their events, and Heather gave a talk, but they are not very active in this membership organisation. In fact, CDI supports more businesses at their early stages, but neither at the beginning Skinny LaMinx made much use of CDI, due to lack of time. They do not find any of these support structures much useful, at least for themselves.

EXTRA CARE THROUGHOUT PRODUCTION Skinny LaMinx purchases rolls of woven fabrics made of linen and cotton blends from Cowie Trading, the only mill remaining active, in the Eastern Cape. The cut make trim (CMT) team next door is equipped with three sewing machines, one cutting machine, and an iron. Each of the lady has her own sewing machine, and everybody irons her own products at the end; they enjoy having this workspace.

Heather’s designs are printed by Imaterial on fabric. Internally, the ladies do the cut make and trim, hand-clean the products and iron them.

The product ranges from aprons, cushion covers, tote bags, fabrics sold by meter, soft buckets, purses, napkins, tea towels, table runners, scarves, and paper posters. Out of the waste fabric they make small products, and they sell small swatches as Do-It-Yourself (DYI) kits.

Once a product is finished, three workers do the quality control, manually, checking if the product is clean, if the zip works properly, etc. Every tiny defeat is fixed; faulty fabrics are repurposed into smaller products, or sold as DIY, or as second hand, but there is hardly any waste here.

Also the packaging is produced internally, with great care. The brown paper shopping bags are printed inside with a branded pattern designed by Melissa. The fabric by meter is wrapped into paper.

For online purchases, products are wrapped into tissue paper; a tag is added with the name of the receiver handwritten on it, together with a postcard and a colourful thank you card, as a personal touch when the customer opens the gift.

A STORE IN LINE WITH THE BUSINESS STORY Janine makes sure that everything in the shop looks perfect, in line with the online store, and consistent with the business story. The social media marketer makes sure all the photos of each new collection taken by Heather and Melissa are ready to go online, following a weekly calendar. Pearl accounts for the average amount of items produced; it is easier to quantify sales than production.

The main production costs are for the fabric and the printing; then, there is the human labour (for design, quality control, and packing). Product prices range from 45 ZAR for a paper card, to 595 ZAR per fabric meter; the price of cushions ranges from 395 to 455 ZAR, while block printed scarves are sold at 495 ZAR. This is the only Skinny LaMinx shop, yet there are other stockists, nationally and internationally. They apply different delivery fees for local, national and international sales.

Skinny LaMinx is defined as a ‘global micro brand’, which invests very local trends, but with international outreach. The business started weighted towards international sales; local sales were very little at the beginning until they opened the shop. The South African currency devaluation has contributed to increasing exporting: Skinny LaMinx sells mostly to the USA and Australia; Europe and the UK are definitely growing. They have a couple of shops in Japan and Korea, and there has been recently an increased interest in Africa, with stockists in Johannesburg. Heather travels often to Europe to connect with stockists, and with the international salesperson, based in Sweden. Skinny LaMinx has also a rep dealing with products in the Western Cape, and communicating with retailers.

IN LOVE WITH SOCIAL MEDIA NETWORKS The business side has challenges in terms of growth at a sustainable rate, but in the end they have managed to balance everything. There are challenges also in the creative side of the business, in terms of launching new collections, although the design phase is quite quick actually.

By travelling, Heather gathers insights and builds a coherent and strong story to convey to people.

Heather is such a digital and social media person; a lot of her experience is already international before she leaves the studio, thanks to her social media network. Melissa and Laura follow a calendar to feed the social media, but for Heather it is an actual love.

In terms of communication, Skinny LaMinx uses a blog, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and weekly newsletters. The shop is also open late, until 8.00pm for the First Thursdays event every month. Before new collection are launched online, once a year they do promotions, and sometimes they organise events, such as the Selfie Studio, which was launched at the Open Street, and was repeated during the Decorex 100% Textiles in 2016.

The main target customers are tourists, middle age women, interior designers and architects decorating venues, not private customers.

STAY LOCAL, GROW GLOBAL Pearl and Heather choose one word (or a couple) every year to guide their work, to help in the decision-making. This makes them look for opportunities to inject into the business, matching some values that reflect the company’s journey.

This year they have ‘generosity and gratitude’, meaning that they have achieved a lot, are quite stable, can be grateful for what they have, and able to reach out to other people, for example to friends and neighbourhoods. An intention is to collaborate with other businesses in Bree Street, for example. Another year, towards the beginning of the business, they had great growth that was all about money, and the year after the shared value was efficiency, to avoid the risk of becoming inefficient once the business is grown.

A sustainable future for Skinny LaMinx would lie in building and growing global sales through a network of like-minded people and businesses worldwide, while keeping design and production in South Africa. Heather and Pearl envisage a steady growth, made of micro steps, allowing them to maintain enjoyment; staying local, and growing globally are key to a sustainable future for them.

bbellamy & bbellamy

ARTIST, DESIGNER, ENVIRONMENTALIST David Bbellamy defines himself as a mixture of an artist, scientist, designer, and environmentalist. He set up the Bbellamy & Bbellamy brand, developing interventions through arts and textiles.

Even if he did not study textiles, since about 20042006 he has been buying textiles from agents in England and partly in Belgium and has imported them in South Africa. This was his ‘bread and butter machine’ to fund other projects – artistic or interventionist – he was interested in. Then, due to the rapid transformation of the global financial situation and the South African currency devaluation, being an importer has become more difficult, and David thought to become instead an exporter, taking advantage of the weakness of the rand.

In addition, for the last years, David has been developing his own artwork, and learned how to do promotions and get them into editorials on his behalf.

ARTISTIC INTERVENTIONS IN THE WORLD David has lived in London for 22 years. He studied Medicine, and also Fine Art and Critical Studies.

This was a broad degree, which was all about making any work as an intervention in the world, without making a division between any forms of art.

Shying away from commercial forms of art, David does not want to rely on appropriations, but he is trying to develop a visual language that is not necessarily already existing, and he is trying to spread it and mobilise society. His approach is not to preserve tradition, but to develop neologisms.

To expose himself to diverse influences, David buys international magazines and follows international profiles on Instagram. Colour collage is a big trend at the moment, and David is applying it into his designs.

SETTING UP A LABORATORY OF IDEAS David used to work in his own fabric shop, in Main Road, Muizenberg, which is right to the corner of his house, and is still up and running, housing an extensive curated collection of imported fabrics, hand-picked by David over decades of travels, and is a treasure trove for local decorators, fabric lovers and tourists. He met Nikki, who used to be a retailer there. At the beginning, Nikki used to work in a school around the corner and worked for David sometimes, but then she didn’t want to be in the school anymore. This was also a time when David decided to focus on textile production in a much bigger way. So, at the end of February 2015, he set up a workspace attached to his own home, he collaborates with Nikki, who comes and work every day, focusing on the making, using some basic tools. This workspace works as a full-time laboratory of ideas: basically, David and Nikki work out a pattern here, do small editions, as an artistic form of textiles.

NATURE-INSPIRED DESIGN-ART David finds the creative side of his job exciting and easy, while keeping the business machine going is boring for him. He uses to look at stuff all the time, and paint as a way to keep practicing his skills. What he finds much more difficult is to deal with administrative work, as well as marketing and promotion.

There are several stages in the design process, starting from a sketch, followed by revision and further development. A lot of designs keep on developing, some of them carry on being alive.

David tries to make sure that his textiles have a subject within them, developing art-design pieces, which are both aesthetic and functional.

He tends to show global trends, through painterly fabrics, making them be about here and now, being in South Africa and addressing contemporary issues.

David’s textile designs and oil paintings refer to the natural world, out of which we evolved and upon which we depend. David is inspired by almost everything in the natural world, as well as by ferocity, kindness, generosity, ambition, value. A lot of his current work is about water issues. For example, one cushion is called ’Sweet Water Music’, addressing the fracking and keeping ground water sweet.

PROTOTYPING & MANAGING PRODUCTION Basically, what happens is that David thinks of something, gets it out of his imagination and he prototypes it in material form. He tries out something and, if it works, he asks Nikki to produce more pieces.

Nikki takes the initiative of making the prototyping, while David, as a designer manager, runs all the work. He manages 2 shops, 6 people and some freelancers, employed when needed, for instance when he receives large orders over Christmas.

David runs all the aspects of the business.

However, he is not involved in production, because it is very laborious. In fact, every product is hand painted and is a unique creation.

If David gets orders for rolls, also internationally, and things become commercially viable, he outsources production to Carol Nevin Designs, a screen-printing company nearby, which also does hand painting on textiles.

SHORTAGE OF LOCAL RESOURCES In his production, David uses linen fabrics as much as possible, produced in the Eastern Cape by Cowie Trading, a company that creates employment and gets people out of poverty.

Their fabrics are quite expensive, but there are no other fabric manufacturers locally, therefore there is no choice and all the local designers and makers get their supplies from Cowie Trading.

For painting, he uses locally made water-based inks, called Dial, in order to reduce pollution.

They are not natural, but they are non-toxic and not very allergenic, therefore they do not cause respiration problems like other chemical inks.

LABOUR-INTENSIVE & LONG-LASTING Bbellamy & Bbellamy’s products are mainly cushion covers, but also upholstery. David collects vintage stuff and he gives them another life through restoration and repair. By not throwing anything away, David is responsible for turning waste problems into opportunities for design.

David has also started designing clothes, such as what he defines ‘concept’ shirts; they are still on embryonic phase, made on order, in limited edition. David is developing them for himself first, and he uses them as a test. He designs the shirts and gets a tailor to make them. He argues for making clothing, not fashion. Essentially, he wants to make timeless things, maybe in or out of fashion. The whole point is that when things are so well made, people will just carry on using them.

David is very responsible for developing labourintensive objects. In fact, in a country like South Africa, where there are massive poverty issues, and resources are less and less available, people emotionally connect to products, which are labour-intensive, contributing, through their purchases, to social stability and poverty alleviation.

David believes that every act of making in the world needs to be done responsibly; if people are irresponsible and don’t care about their purchases, then what they buy is a world they don’t want.

If you buy synthetics, you are contributing to a world made of plastic. Instead, David believes that we should be making everything last for as long as possible, so we should always live with old and new things.

SOCIAL MEDIA AND BRAND VISIBILITY David is a member of the Craft and Design Institute (CDI).

He is also active on social media networks. For instance, he is improving his social media use and sets deadlineS for himself. In particular, he does one post a day on Instagram, and through it or Facebook he builds relationships. For instance, thanks to his visibility on Instagram, he was invited to exhibit at ‘Picture Africa’ during 100% Textiles at Decorex in 2016. He also used Twitter, but he did not get much responses, and he then uses it very rarely. David would like to employ a social media manager, but his budget does not allow it, therefore he does it on his own.

Recently, David had his website made, and this has helped the brand become more visible. In fact, Bbellamy & Bbellamy has suddenly got a lot of editorials, for instance a full page in ‘House & Garden’ and three full pages in ‘Elle Décoration South Africa’.

SELLING GLOCALLY Although the evidence that he got a lot of recognition recently, David acknowledges that people in South Africa are quite conservative and are not looking for innovative handmade stuff per se, but they are rather looking for labels coming from abroad.

From his shop, David sells his products mostly to local people and tourists, but he doesn’t sell abroad yet. Africa Nova in the Watershed also sells some cushions by Bbellamy & Bbellamy. The next step would be to set up an e-shop.

There was a stage in which David had packaging with his brand stamped on it, but now he just uses wrap paper.

AN ECONOMICALLY SUSTAINABILE FUTURE Bbellamy & Bbellamy is growing all the time, and David needs to make sure the business is financially viable. Economic sustainability is David’s main objective, followed by visibility.

David aims to grow his production and doubling the turnover, in order to be able to employ other people and take them out of poverty.

lichen & leaf

A PASSION FOR PRINTING ON FABRIC Cynthia Edwards describes herself as a printmaker. She studied fine arts and has a major in printmaking. Fabric has not always been her medium; basically, it’s always been very easy for Cynthia to make things with her hands, experimenting with diverse media. She has no training on product design, but she enjoys diving into something, learning new skills by herself.

Printing is her passion, and then she evolved into printing on fabric. She did wood carving, but she did not have a press and could not do any printing. So, she ended up doing wood block printing, which she finds actually very cool. She always wanted to make her own clothes and she has always sawn; product design came as a result of it.

MAKING THINGS BY HAND Cynthia founded Lichen & Leaf in December 2014, driven by her passion for making stuff, and inspired by her desire to become a maker and not an artist.

She spent a long time deciding what she wanted to do. When she started, she thought she could mechanise her making process, but now she made the aware choice of keeping it handson, based on her own skills, which she enjoys developing further. Making things by hand, acknowledging where things come from, and emphasising the process behind a product is what has always inspired Cynthia. In fact, people do not know who made our clothes; with this in mind, telling the process behind making stuff excites Cynthia.

A NATURAL FEEL FOR THE BRAND Lichen is a word that Cynthia has liked for a very long time. It is an organism that can grow anywhere, on trees, as well as on rocks. When on a rock, it changes the surface of a rock, giving spectacular colours and beautiful patterns to it.

Then, Cynthia was looking for another word, which could work well together with lichen, keeping the brand as natural feel as natural as possible, and she combined it with ‘leaf’. Hence, the business name ‘Lichen & Leaf’.

FLEXIBLE COLLABORATIONS Cynthia does all the product design and printing by herself, as well as most of the cutting. In fact, it is not possible for her to employ people full-time due to financial constraints. However, Cynthia gets expert advice when needed; for instance, Jesse Breytenback gave her lots of insights when she started her business. Nowadays, Cynthia works with three women to do bits and pieces; they are self-employed and work on commission for whoever needs them. There is a lady who does all the fabric work when Cynthia gets bigger orders. Another lady, with long experience in making shoes, helps Cynthia with the leather work. Cynthia has also a seamstress who makes clothes. It is nice for Cynthia to be flexible, in terms of time. Since she is not taking big orders, her collaborators can fit her demands somehow.

Collaboration happens via messaging, calls, visits in person, and delivery (Cynthia is her own courier).

EFFICIENCY AND PROFESSIONALISM Cynthia is the manager: she gives commissions to her helpers, and they work collaboratively.

They discuss how much it would cost to complete an order, they may negotiate the cost based on the customer price, but it usually works, and Cynthia pays for each product. Because they are skilled, Cynthia trusts them and pays suitably; she believes paying people properly is really important and doesn’t like bartering.

Because Cynthia is self-employed, there is a mutual expectation for time, efficiency, and professionalism. She expects her collaborators to produce well, and they expect her to pay on time.

Depending on the scale of production, the time is reasonable for her clients; it would usually take one month to make a product. However, delays are another South African challenge.

THE CHALLENGE OF FINDING PEOPLE Cynthia highlights that it is hard to find people, this is the biggest challenge for her, because it requires a lot of training and mentoring people.

Cynthia found her collaborators through word of mouth. For instance, she found her seamstress when she was sharing a flat with her boyfriend, who is a painter; they were asking anyone for a seamstress and someone pointed her to a woman downstairs doing CMT. So, unexpectedly, she found her contacts, just by talking to others, to people who are not in the industry actually.

Cynthia finds it frustrating when people do not share information; instead, if someone asks her, she would give an honest opinion, she would recommend her women.

WILLINGNESS TO JOIN A COMMUNITY Cynthia is part of CDI but is not a really active member of it. She believes it would make much sense for businesses like her to join together as a community. Cynthia would like if businesses helped each other, making it much more effective to make Cape Town and South Africa as a kind of hot spot, potentially also internationally.

According to Cynthia, sharing information, online, for free would be the best thing they could do.

However, she acknowledges that South Africans are not very organised; there is an overall lack of attitude towards ‘making things happen’.

There are many organisations, non-for-profit and commercial ones, but they need systems and service design. For instance, if a business is applying for funding, it needs help in finding access to it.

THE NEED FOR THE RIGHT RETAIL SPACE Cynthia produces at small scale; hers is a slow production. However, she acknowledges that most of the South African industry is done really fast and cheaply. Many people still do not value slow fashion.

Cynthia admits she is struggling with retail supplies. Her stockists are in New Zealand, in Switzerland, in Germany, in different places.

The business is growing, but she would really appreciate having some contacts locally; it is so important to find the right space.

When she started Lichen & Leaf in December 2014, Cynthia had a stand in the Biscuit Mill market for 6 months. The work was very rewarding, but the market was very tough and very slow in terms of sales, because visitors wanted mostly food and cocktails, and did not purchase crafts products much. Cynthia struggled until May-June, until she decided she could no longer deal with it, since she was very stressed and it was very boring doing always the same product. Instead, now she has more time to focus on product development.

Fabricate was the first local stockist for Lichen & Leaf, and they have been great; when Cynthia started, she produced more tea towels and small items, which worked well at Fabricate. She still sells there, but it is not a big shop.

Originally from London, Avant Premiere has opened a pop-up shop in Kloof Street in Cape Town; it was her first time for Cynthia to put herself into a retail space. That was really eye opening, it was quite uplifting.

ENVISIONING TO DRIVE A COMMUNITY Cynthia’s vision for a sustainable future lies in the creation of an encouraging and prolific environment to support a community of local artisanal businesses. She argues for the need to share information across businesses, for instance through an open access database of affordable fabrics. Her own main need is to find a good retail outlet or pop-up shops, as well as to set up an e-shop and improve her brand image on social media. If her business grew, she would like to have to manage a team of full-time employees in order to achieve a more stable production. She would also like to facilitate collective workshops in order transfer her skills and teach slow fashion design, but also share equipment with other makers in a co-working space. Moreover, Cynthia envisions to improve her technology and make limited collections of multi-functional products. Overall, Cynthia would like to take on a proactive role, and drive the process of designing and making, but also building a sustainable community of collaborative businesses.

township®

AN INTEGRATIVE SOCIAL ENTERPRISE Township® is a corporation founded in 1997 with a commitment to creating meaningful and sustainable economic opportunities for women in South Africa’s township communities.

Job creation and women’s economic empowerment form the foundations of the Township® ethical fashion brand. Today, Township Patterns CC has an established reputation as a unique and innovative social enterprise, providing work for an ever-expanding network of independent township-based sewing co-operatives that it helps set up through its notfor-profit organization Afrique du Sud, Bidonvilles (ASB).

ENTREPRENEURIAL WOMEN Nicole-Marie Iresch, CEO of Township®, founded it with aim to bring economic opportunities to women in their own communities. According to Nicole-Marie, listening to them and trying to answer their needs has shaped her life radically.

Working together, they have been on a journey of positive change.

Nicole-Marie Iresch acted as a gatekeeper for me, providing me access to her community of artisans from Khayelitsha township. Being Nicole-Marie Iresch a businesswoman living between Paris and Cape Town, it was honestly challenging to match her schedule with my research’s tight timeframe in Cape Town. However, I am infinitely grateful for her to have put me in touch in Waheedah Dien, sales manager at Township®, who helped me arrange storytelling sessions with two of the artisans from Khayelitsha.

Finally, I was honoured that Nicole-Marie was able to join the roundtable discussion I led towards the end of my research journey in Cape Town in June 2016.

EMPOWERING COMMUNITIES The co-operatives are at the heart of everything done at TownshipÂŽ. Thanks to funding provided by the governmental Department of Trade and Industry, the co-ops were set up and are equipped with materials and tools for production.

The members begin as trainees and develop into professional businesswomen, taking their own decisions and enjoying their success. ASB provides women with the skills to establish and run independent sewing co-operatives within their communities. Each co-op receives intensive sewing, accounting and business training and, after six months, becomes an autonomous entity registered with the Department of Trade and Industry.

A CO-OPERATIVE STRUCTURE There are currently about 6 to 8 co-ops – in Khayelitsha and Manenberg on the Cape Flats – providing work for around 60 women and positively affecting 7 to 10 people for every job created. The co-ops encourage collective learning through sharing skills among the women. Importantly, the ladies are able to work in a professional and safe environment, close to their families, saving on the time and money they would otherwise spend commuting. The women meet regularly at the ASB office as a way to see the work done by the other co-ops and discuss eventual issues.

Among the artisans, I met Ethia Jempu at the Township® shop at the Watershed, where she uses to crochet/embroider scarves and is responsible also for sales, providing her with an opportunity to interact with customers and feel ownership of the brand. Ethia told me that she joined Township® since she was attracted by the opportunity to pursue a creative and innovative work using her hands.

COLOURFUL AND UNIQUE DESIGNS The printed designs on the fabrics have been developed from students at Duperre School in Paris. The brief was to capture the vibrant colours and textures of Khayelitsha township into unique designs to reflect their own African culture. As a result, about 100 different designs were developed, making a legacy for SA. This rich portfolio has not been fully tapped yet and constitute a potential resource for other local designers to work with.

The women from the local communities can now work with something unique. This is why the fabrics are not sold per metre; at TownshipÂŽ they only sell products made by the seamstresses.

PRODUCTION CHALLENGES One of the manufacturing challenges for Township® is to find a good supplier of cotton thread, which is one of the main expenses for the company. Most of the cotton comes from Madagascar, the only place where Nicole-Marie could find “fine” cotton in Africa. On this fabric, the designs are printed in South Africa. The production is environmentally friendly; the thread for crocheting is used until it is finished, and any fabric offcuts are reused to make additional small products, such as jeweller. Nevertheless, Township® faces challenges in terms of production capacity and logistic of suppliers who do not always provide materials on time.

FAIR-TRADE PRODUCTS Township Patterns CC focuses on designing, marketing and distributing the Township® ranges of bags and accessories – from high-end fashion collections to eco-friendly Pick n Pay shoppers and custom branded conference bags. All the items are handmade, largely by women-run co-ops, which means that every purchase of a Township® product directly translates into work for township women.

Township® was the first South African fashion brand to become a member of the World Fair Trade Organization.

GLOCAL SALES Township® employs diverse communication channels, such as its own website, Twitter, Instagram, a newsletter, and holds stands at conferences to distribute branded bags for the delegates. Furthermore, being a fair-trade certificate corporation contributes to increasing the company visibility amongst ethically aware corporations and consumers. In fact, we are witnessing an increased customer’s appreciation for ethical fashion; furthermore, Township® resides in a privileged position in South Africa, having worked in the social entrepreneurial sector for a long time, and having therefore developed a wide experience in dealing with related challenges.

The products are sold in the Township® shop in the Watershed, a beautiful shopping mall by the Victoria & Alfred (V&A) Waterfront. Here, locals and especially international tourists purchase the best of Cape Town’s design and crafts.

Besides this mono-brand shop and a stand at the local deli café Giovanni’s where shopping bags made by Township® are sold, an e-shop was set up to sell products also to international customers.

Overall, besides the product sales, Township® receives grants, which contribute to keeping the business economically sustainable.

A TOWNSHIP® BAG FOR EVERYBODY Nicole-Marie’s vision for the future lies in making Township® products accessible to everybody.

In this regard, an opportunity for co-designing product prices with the artisans, taking into consideration the time invested in production could contribute also to empowering the women, by better valuing their own skills and labour. Moreover, the need for further training development programmes was outlined in order to empower more and more women with skills to access an increasing number of cooperatives and be employed by Township®. Waheedah also envisioned an opportunity for repurposing fabric offcuts in order to enlarge the product range, for instance through organising design contests and facilitating creative workshops with local artisans and international students. Moreover, to optimise the already positive impacts of the fair-trade certification, a collaboration with a specialist consultant could be sought in order to assess the supply chain and suitably label all the product. Finally, marketing, social media, activism and crowdfunding campaigns, as well as networking events were discussed as potential areas of improvement in order to raise people’s awareness of the ethical purposes of Township® and reach out to a wider network of consumers.

tryanglez

AN URBAN CHIC BRAND TryAnglez is an urban chic brand, which uses traditional fabrics with modern cuts for everyday use. The value proposition of the brand lies in inspirational, unique, fresh as well as heritage garments. They embrace elements of the Xhosa culture, the shwe shwe pattern, which is used by Sotho women for traditional ceremonies, and is now appropriated by many young South African designers.

TRY ALL ANGLES – NEVER GIVE UP The idea behind the business name TryAnglez is try all angles, never give up.

It was funded by Lungiswa Joe, a fashion designer and maker, originally from Port Elizabeth, who graduated in retail management from Cape Peninsula University of Technology (CPUT).

Lungiswa worked as a sales assistant in fashion boutiques. At the beginning, she did not know if she wanted to be a fashion buyer. She volunteered at the Catholic Welfare Development (CWD), which employed ladies from Congo working in rebranding jeans and reselling them in the market.

Lungiswa got some pairs of jeans, redesigned them, and the people there fell in love with them.

Therefore, Lungiswa thought she could work with CWD for some time. Afterwards, she worked at the Craft and Design Institute (CDI) and over time she realised her passion for a creative job.

The business idea for TryAnglez came in collaboration with three school friends of Lungiswa, driven by the will to develop clothes, which represented their own identity and their heritage. The business started as a collaboration among the four friends, but now it is a solo business managed by Lungiswa, while the others are running their own projects.

LEARNING SOMETHING NEW EVERY DAY Lungiswa used to work at CDI and considers herself as a member of it by default. At CDI they have incredible facilities and they offer interesting programmes. Lungiswa goes there for certain things she requires, for instance to test her prints.

Brian Ramkilawan, former CEO of the Cape Town Fashion Council, was Lungiswa’s mentor at Cape Peninsula University of Technology in 2015 and he helped her refine her product range and business plan.

Lungiswa learns something new every day.

Over time, she has learned to cut fabrics and to restructure garments. She picks stuff up through observation of the environment surrounding her, she keeps her skills up to date by doing a lot of research on the internet, and she gets inspirations for her products through conversations with her customers.

Lungiswa loves photography, through which she looks at things differently. She does some photoshoots using her friends as models; she likes using ordinary people – both her white and black friends – to show the dynamics of the clothes.

For instance, in one photoshoot she wanted to show how the clothes made by TryAnglez can be worn both at work in the day and to go out in the evening.

AD HOC COLLABORATIONS Lungiswa develops the designs and choses the fabrics.

She collaborates with Ishmael who has a small CMT team of three people making the hoodies for TryAnglez. They met by accident, through a friend who accompanied Lungiswa to visit a small CMT workshop; over time, Lungiswa commissioned them more work.

There is also Louise, who works from home, helping Lungiswa finish her products. They met when Lungiswa was working at a friend’s house, making things by herself, but needed someone to help her finish her stuff on time, and found Louise, who was sitting there, waiting for someone to commission her work. The two generally meet in the street, half-way, before Louise catches her train to go back home in a township. Lungiswa makes a sample on her own, binds all elements together, and delivers them to Louise. It is generally a short meeting, and when Louise has finished the production, she texts or phones Lungiswa and they meet again.

In the future, Lungiswa would like to set up a CMT workshop and employ Louise, who already knows how to achieve the right product quality; she could also involve other older people who used to work in factories and who could train the new generation of makers.

LOCALLY AVAILABLE FABRICS Currently, Lungiswa buys fabrics – made of 100% cotton – woven by Cowie Trading. She purchases them from a shop in Belville, at higher prices than what she could get from the manufacturer in Port Elizabeth; however, being a small business, she can only afford buying small batches, and she has to get only what’s available in stock. Instead, in the future, Lungiswa would like to print her own fabrics, using African symbols and reinterpreting elements of her own cultural heritage into a modern style.

MANAGING ALL THE PROCESS FROM HOME For a period, Lungiswa has rented a co-working space in 75 Harrington, but this didn’t turn viable, and since June 2016 she moved all her business in the living room of her home studio in Rondebosch. Lungiswa opened the doors of her studio space to me one day, to show me her fabrics and tools, which are scissors, a cutting table, and mannequins. There, she manages all the process, from design to production to distribution. She starts from finding inspiration for her designs and sketching existing or new styles.

She then lays out the fabric and cuts the pattern to produce a sample, which is then handed over to Louise who produces the garment.

Grading the sizes of the garments is done at the computer, for which Lungiswa pays a fee. When the collection is ready, she uploads photos on her Instagram and Facebook pages, through which she receives orders from customers and she meets them in person to sell the garments, building and maintaining a direct relationship with the customers.

A WIDE PRODUCT RANGE The products range includes t-shirts, sweaters, hoodies, shirts, and dresses. Lungiswa develops her collections by season, and she is also always keen in finding ways to reutilise small offcuts.

Lungiswa tries to make 20 items per month.

Her main expenses are the fabric and the manufacturing process. For instance, a sweater costs 230 ZAR to produce, plus 270 ZAR for the sleeves; this is a lot of money for Lungiswa, who also have to add the cost of her own design time.

A t-shirt costs 220 to 670 ZAR, and a jacket 900 ZAR. The packaging consists of recycled brown paper bags on which a pattern – designed by a friend of Lungiswa using the TryAnglez logo – is printed.

MAKING THE BUSINESS SELF-SUSTAINABLE Overall, TryAnglez is economically self-sustainable by now; the first year was financially challenging, but over time the earning was reinvested into the business.

Lungiswa believes that more grants and support should reach out to businesses in townships, where people are hungry for creative activities.

For instance, although the CDI has an outreach programme, bureaucracy and the lack of infrastructure are barriers for implementing innovative ideas in townships. With this in mind, Lungiswa argues for the need to develop innovative models, outside of the business-asusual.

TARGETING THE LOCAL COMMUNITY Sales happen mostly through word of mouth and social media networks.

TryAnglez is based in Cape Town, and the products are mostly targeted to the community of young black people living in Khayelitsha township, which has interesting dynamics and an urban culture. People from the community identify with the patterns and purchase such contemporary garments, which are sold at affordable prices.

Instead of selling in shops, Lungiswa sells in a market; this is more financially sustainable for the business, but it also allows reaching out to people who appreciate the products made by TryAnglez as well as other young local designers, makers and artists.

As a personal interest and contribution to her own black community, but also as a way to promote TryAnglez, Lungiswa volunteers to work with black film makers for the organisation and running of a festival, which generally takes place at 75 Harrington and at The Glass Box in Cape Town, but also in Port Elizabeth.

Moreover, a friend of Lungiswa buys and markets her products in Johannesburg.

Due to the contemporary urban style of TryAnglez, the garments have been able to appeal to international customers.

A VISION FOR COMMUNITY EMPOWERMENT According to Lungiswa, a sustainable future for TryAnglez may lie in developing a brand for the next generation of people, passionate for unique and colourful garments. Lungiswa vision for the future lies in contributing to local job creation; with this in mind, she would like to set up a workshop from where to screen-print her own patterns, developed in collaboration with a community of in-house CMTs. Being environmentally aware, Lungiswa envisions to keep the scale of her production small, as more sustainable, and managed by someone responsible for the quality control. She hopes in a wider offer of materials and fabrics produced locally by reliable manufacturers. Lungiswa envisions an international growth of her business and the opening of shops in neighbouring countries in Africa. Lungiswa believes in the power of community engagement, for instance through sharing skills between other local creatives. Finally, she argues for the need of an ethical support system made of NGOs aimed at empowering people to develop sustainable and entrepreneurial ideas and enabling innovation of small local businesses.

“Africa’s resources are its people, and the crosscultural ethics of Ubuntu (being human through others) depends on people – individuals – to uphold the conditions for a sustainable future” mugendi k.m’rithaa (CPUT)

FRANCESCO MAZZARELLA PhD researcher at Loughborough Design School Funded by the AHRC Design Star CDT Supervised by V.Mitchell, A.J. May & M.C. Escobar-Tello Advised by T. Weideman at CPUT With the invaluable contribution of the artisans and all the people who kindly offered their time, knowledge and enthusiasm for this research project.

thank you baie dankie

FRANCESCO MAZZARELLA PhD researcher at Loughborough Design School As part of my doctoral journey, from April to June 2016 I pursued field research in Cape Town. Armed with the intention to map the current textile artisanal sector in Cape Town, I undertook a participatory case study with the aim to co-design a situated service encouraging a transition towards a sustainable future. I kickedoff the study with a design ethnography activity, encompassing participant observations and unstructured interviews with diverse stakeholders (i.e. artisans, members of support organisations, educators, retailers, and consumers). Through the context immersion, it emerged that Cape Town used to be a textile-manufacturing cluster, but in the last decades most of the production has been outsourced, and not many fabric manufacturers are still active locally. Therefore, contemporary textile artisans are struggling to find new supplies for their collections as well as skilled CMTs (i.e. cut make trim). On the other hand, resource constraints have mobilised local creativity and triggered artisans to start up businesses around screen- and block-printing on available base cloth in order to personalise and differentiate their textiles over local and overseas competitors. This has opened up the market for local artisanal textiles, produced both for homeware and apparel.

This photo-story captures the findings from the initial phase of my research process aimed at situating a meaningful intervention within the artisans’ realities, followed by making sense of

sustainable futures, co-creating a situated service proposition, and activating legacies with the local community. Throughout my journey, I collaborated with a group of eight artisanal businesses using printing techniques to locally make small batches of textiles and fashion products (i.e. Fabricnation, Indigi Designs, Shine Shine, Skinny LaMinx, Bbellamy & Bbellamy, Lichen & Leaf, Township®, and TryAnglez).

Throughout the co-design process, the artisans recommended encouraging a synergy of bottom-up initiatives among like-minded businesses and topdown support into a middle-up-down approach aimed at community resilience. With this in mind, a future strategy was framed around the development of a hybrid (i.e. physical and digital) platform for sharing information throughout the supply chain and making it accessible, enabling Cape Town textile artisanal businesses to flourish, locally and internationally. As a result, the artisans joined together as a collective, called ‘Weaving the Threads’, co-creating value in terms of collective knowledge, local job creation, enhanced environmental stewardship, revitalised artisanal heritage and place-making. We wish this is just the beginning of a collective effort for crafting a sustainable future for the Cape Town artisanal fabric.