TRENDING

Shereen Lurie meets SA’s leading creatives WATCH Talent

LESEGO MALOKA CREATIVE DIRECTOR OF PONE CREATIVES

one Creatives is a textile design and manufacturing studio owned by Lesego Maloka, a creative, modern African textile designer on a mission to spark joy through colour and heritage. Deeply rooted in her mother’s and grandmother’s influences, her brand Pone Creatives was born. Today Maloka specialises in jacquard weaving her textiles for home furnishings to create colourful, heritage-loving homes. P

My interest in textile design began when I was about five years old. Every day when I came from preschool I would spend an hour watching my late grandmother work. She was a knitter and a seamstress. She tried teaching me how to sew when I was about nine years old but I hated it because all I cared about was playing with my friends. I never planned to be in the textile industry or to be a textile designer. My career life started in the film industry as a set stylist/art director. Only later did I study interior decorating. I am Montwane , a grand-daughter of the Ndebele raised in the Batswana clan. My paternal clan is the Bantwane and my maternal clan is the Ndebele; both have been living around the Batswana clan. I am now finding out more about myself and my identity through using the textiles as my medium in the South African textile industry, surrounded by history, machinery and working in a factory that has been around for six decades. My designs are inspired by childhood experience and are infused with my heritage. I was raised in an eclectic home where colour, pattern and imperfection were everywhere. This is where I learnt to not fear colour and pattern and to embrace it as its own life and purpose. Favourite local designers include Ronel Jordaan – I love the innovative products she makes using felt. She is very passionate and her signature is always so vivid in her work. One of my favourite designs is the Pone Creatives rug. It is one piece that always brings a smile to my face.

South African design is a combination of unity and avantgarde “cultural diversity”. South Africa is so rich in its heritage and I love how the design industry has an uncanny way of expressing itself. The 2019 Design Indaba’s Emerging Creatives is where I launched our first Pone Creatives Jacquard woven range. It was such an amazing platform to be involved in, opened new doors for Pone Creatives and allowed the company to enter into an intense period of growth. I am currently working on a new textile range. Q

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DELICATE DESIGN, POWERFUL FEATURES.

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Great design doesn’t have to mean compromise on functionality.