Lily&Rose Design Studio

It was with much excite­ment that Ninene & I set out on our annual trip to Decorex Joburg yes­ter­day. Decorex is the largest décor & design show in South­ern Africa. It fea­tures the lat­est on the local and inter­na­tional front with a fresh per­spec­tive on spaces in which to live, work and play.

A typ­i­cal day at Decorex is always a long one and part of the excite­ment is bump­ing into friends we haven’t seen for a while. We end up back home late after­noon, feet on the couch and chat­ting about our finds & new dis­cov­er­ies until we are drop dead tired! Exhaust­ing, but fun.

We’d love to share all of it with you, but it is sim­ply too much. Hence the deci­sion to do this post in 2 parts. This is part 1 and fea­tures “all things uniquely South African”. Be sure to catch up with us tomor­row for part 2. Apolo­gies upfront for the poor qual­ity of some of the images.

Uniquely South African

Pho­tog­ra­phy as art is gain­ing pop­u­lar­ity fast. Jan & Jay Roode of Sky­hawk Pho­tog­ra­phy is a cou­ple with an intrigu­ing story, liv­ing the African dream. He is a pilot and she a nature con­ser­va­tion­ist (to name but one of her qual­i­fi­ca­tions) and together they take breath­tak­ing aer­ial pho­tographs. The story is one we’ll def­i­nitely share in another post, but here’s a lit­tle of what you can expect.

The cre­ative tal­ent on dis­play is unbe­liev­able and this year we were espe­cially impressed by the South African Hand­made Col­lec­tion — a new ini­tia­tive by the Depart­ment of Trade and Indus­try. It cel­e­brates the fusion of her­itage with the future, and tra­di­tion with the imag­i­na­tion. This defin­i­tive col­lec­tion rep­re­sents the high­est qual­ity, hand­made and envi­ron­men­tally friendly South African craft products.

Beau­ti­ful Nguni Cat­tle rugs from Majay­im­ile Trad­ing.

Ace Maize flour pack­ag­ing in a quirky duvet design by Wozobona Cul­tural House

Unique hand embroi­dered table­ware and cush­ions made by the women of Sophumelela Women’s Co-Op

Laura Hewgill of Veldt draws on Nature for inspi­ra­tion to make her gor­geous home tex­tiles and ceram­ics — sim­ply to die for.

Craig Stowe of Stowe & so. hangs yet another one of his unique hand­printed table­cloths. Avail­able in a vari­ety of unique designs and an absolute must have!

Beau­ti­ful laser cut home­wares and gifts from Doo­dles.

Yda Walt with some of her hand­printed tex­tiles, art and ceramics.

Johan­nes­burg based ceramic artist, Julia K spe­cial­izes in Con­tem­po­rary hand painted ceramic pieces. We loved Julia’s bright, colour­ful shapes.

The adorable Ann (spelling!) Gadd with her equally adorable Ewe’s

www.artforewe.co.za