West Elm’s South African Collection

The story behind West Elm’s South African Col­lec­tion – their lat­est and biggest-ever col­lab­o­ra­tion with arti­sans from Cape Town and Johan­nes­burg.  The col­lec­tion fea­ture pieces by 16 South African artisans.

The Brooklyn-based brand have worked with far­away artists (from Los Ange­les to Lon­don) before, but this is their first time work­ing so closely with the design com­mu­nity of one country.  This speaks to how pas­sion­ately the West Elm team feels about South Africa. “It’s amaz­ing how var­ied the voices are there,” says Cre­ative Direc­tor Vanessa Holden. “There are influ­ences from so many dif­fer­ent back­grounds lay­ered on the foun­da­tional African cul­ture. I love the idea of those mul­ti­ple points of inspi­ra­tion com­ing together. It makes for a real melt­ing pot point of view.”

The full col­lec­tion varies from fur­ni­ture, like  John Vogel’s woven seats, to bright pot­tery by Mick Haigh, and unique light­ing such as artist Shirley Fintz’s Delft-inspired ele­phant table lamp. As Holden puts it, “We felt so strongly about South Africa, we wanted peo­ple to be able to sit on it, eat out of it, and observe it.”

It all started with Trevyn and Julian McGowan of Source intro­duc­ing Holden and her team to oth­ers within South Africa’s design com­mu­nity. “Peo­ple are often awestruck by how lay­ered and com­plex our coun­try is,” says Trevyn. “The peo­ple are warm and wel­com­ing, there is ref­er­ence from dozens of his­tor­i­cal back­grounds, and this feeds into cre­at­ing a vibrant and tex­tured envi­ron­ment.” Fit­tingly, all the artists wel­comed West Elm into their stu­dios and homes—often to inspir­ing results. “When we met with Gemma Orkin one after­noon, she’d just come back from surf­ing with her kids,” says Holden. “The lifestyle there is very inte­grated with being out­side, with being con­vivial and social, and fold­ing your work and cre­ativ­ity into the way you live.” She adds: “It’s cer­tainly a life I’d like to live.”

Many of the arti­sans look out­doors for inspi­ra­tion for their work. “I enjoy cre­at­ing con­nec­tions between nature and our liv­ing envi­ron­ments,” says Vogel. “My favorite piece from my West Elm col­lec­tion is the din­ing chair because it suc­cess­fully bridges func­tion­al­ity, organic form, and local weav­ing tech­niques.” Chris Sil­ver­ston from Potter’s Work­shop also sites bright sunshine—“which brings out good humor and hap­pi­ness,” as a main inspi­ra­tion for her company’s ceramics.

 “When a design object makes you stop and look again, you start to fig­ure out the var­i­ous lay­ers of mean­ing. We’re inspired by design that con­tin­ues to grow on you, so your appre­ci­a­tion and enjoy­ment deep­ens,” says Source’s McGowan.

The Source bench is an update of a his­tor­i­cal South African iconic piece.

Loren Kaplan dinnerware.

The Masai beaded choker on a black stand - one of the found pieces the team brought back from South Africa.

“My work is a bal­ance between mod­ern design prin­ci­ples, organic form, and hand­crafted work­man­ship,” says Vogel. Here, his Man­tis lounger, pic­tured with a Source lamp.Vogel’s din­ing chairs and bench.

Gemma Orkin’s whim­si­cal serv­ing bowls.

Pil­lows by Gemma Orkin.

“In South Africa, there is so much raw energy in creativity—people are not ham­pered by pre­con­cep­tions,” says Sil­ver­ston of Potter’s Work­shop. Here, her black and white dinnerware.

A stacked ele­phant table lamp by artist Shirley Fintz.