Hello Pretty

#WDC2014 Cape Town love

With World Design Capital fever being far from over, I decided to show Cape Town some love today. Inspired by the launch of Open Design Cape Town next week, here are a few of the awesome items from the site that pay tribute to the Mother City:

Sho, but it's a good looking place. Which city should we do next?

Black & White Delight

With Women's Day coming up, we'd like to take a moment to show some love for handbags, especially this one. It's full grain black and white leather, and we're head over heels in love with it. Get yours from Willow Tree here.

We featured this table in our newsletter this week, along with a curated collection of things for the women in your life. There's a new theme every week, so if you'd like to be kept in the loop, sign up below!

Win with Hello Pretty and Leg Studios! (Closed)

With winter dragging its heels, you might need something to light up those grey days and cold nights. Well, that's where the super talented Leg Studios comes in. They've got one of these amazing Halōs table lamps to give away.

I can hear you all ooh-ing and aah-ing, and for good reason. This art deco inspired lamp is just as beautiful in person. If you'd like it to be yours, here's what you need to do:

Like Hello Pretty and Leg Studios on Facebook
Comment on this post telling us which room in your house you'd light up with this contemporary and cool Halōs Lamp!
Get an extra entry by tweeting @HelloPrettySA*

Entries close at midday on Friday 8th August. Please note that Hello Pretty's standard competition Ts and Cs apply.

* Please note that only one tweet per person will be counted.

Studio Visit with Bigkid Design

One of the best things about being part of Team HP, is that no matter where we go in the country, there's always some amazing talent to be found. While I was in Durban recently, I popped in to visit with the lovely Jess from Bigkid Design, and found a space full of colour and contrast, and art both traditional and unconventional.

Isn't that clock just the best thing? After an effusive welcome from the household's exuberant dogs, Jess plied me with tea and made me feel right at home. Seeing her space made it easy to understand the playfulness found in her designs.

I'm incredibly nosy, so after I peppered her with questions, Jess was kind enough to take me through the process of making one of Bigkid's famous Lego bookends; and let me tell you, they are hard work. It's always fascinating to see how the beautiful pieces you see on Hello Pretty get made. (Hint: Usually with a LOT of hard work.)

I'm not going to give away any trade secrets, but making just one of those little guys takes time, patience, and an incredible eye for detail. After turning out my own effort, knowing just what went into making it, I opted to take him home as is to remind me that like everything worth it, you have to put the work in.

Isn't he cute? I've called him Don Quixote, because he looks like he's ready to go tilting at windmills! (And, he's made from jesmonite, which is water resistant - so he'll be just fine in his new home.)

One last thing I snapped before I headed out, at the end of a wonderful afternoon:

This was from a mosaic-ed section outside in the garden. Every tile was handmade. This one was my favourite, from a book by Jeannette Winterson.

"A young girl coming home along a slippery and frayed line of rope missed her footing and fell into the blank space below. There was a cry of horror from everyone who saw it, but the girl did not drop and crack on the ground, she floated."

Snag your very own Bigkid item from their Hello Pretty store, and stay in touch with them on Facebook.

Stay golden!

One trend that's been on the go for a while now, and one that we cannot get enough of, is a bit a gold slung around a gal's waist. Well, gold anything really, but what better way to revel in something gorgeous than to drape it around yourself?

Gorgeous no? And what's better is that I know how you can get this look!

Not just any old gold belt mind - a hand cut brass beauty straight from the studio of SMITH Jewellery in Cape Town.

Gold belts from http://hellopretty.co.za/smith-jewellery

*swoon!*

I was lucky enough to have access to one of the cuffs at last years SAFW Pop Up, and at the end of the media launch I was genuinely heartbroken to have to take it off (We all took it upon ourselves to model some of the fab work of our sellers for the cameras - I can't think of a better excuse to dolly up). The craftmanship is absolutely gorgeous!

Gold belts from http://hellopretty.co.za/smith-jewellery/tribal-brass-waist-cuff

Thank you to Sarah from The Angelheaded Hipster and Lara from A Fashion Friend for the SAFW Pop Up pics!

Swoon over it some more on Pardon Our French (they're very fancy over there).

Source / source / source / source / source

Top Brass

This table takes the idea that form should follow function and turns it on its head. Clean lines contrast with the intricate lasercut pattern, and a usually utilitarian piece of furniture gets its turn in the spotlight with a beautiful brass shine. Get yours from Leg Studios here.

We featured this table in our newsletter this week, along with a curated collection of awesome brass and timber items. There's a new theme every week, so if you'd like to be kept in the loop, sign up below!

Pretty Personal with Lauren Frates

We've all played a childhood game of "I Spy" on long car trips, but usually our discoveries tended more towards the mundane - cars, trees, and the like. Lovely Lauren from iSpy has a knack for finding the hidden beauty in everything around her, and uses it to create beautiful homeware with bright, bold prints. Here's her story.

Pretty Personal with Lauren Frates

Products shown:

"Fig Tree" cushion cover in blue and coral

"Apples" cushion cover in blue and coral

"Big Kiwi" tote in cornflower blue and coral

"Kiwi Pattern" in blue

"Big Kiwi" cushion cover in coral and pink

Hello Lauren! Tell us a little about yourself.
Ok, so I'm a graphic designer by day, and textile designer at night and on weekends. I spent 10 years living and working in Pretoria and Jo'burg as a graphic designer before we moved to Knysna in 2010. Taking a break to have babies and adjust to small town life resulted in an unintentional shift towards experimenting with textile design, just for kicks. At this stage in my life, I seem to be wearing many hats – wife, mom of two preschoolers, domestic manager, graphic designer, textile designer and a member of a really collective called Hands Design Collective – a good story for another day!
I'm tired just thinking about how busy you are! At what point did you realise that iSpy had gone from being an outlet to a brand with a life of its own?
Has iSpy become a brand of it's own? Awesome if it has! Living in teeny Knysna, it feels like I'm Facebooking, emailing and posting into oblivion ;-)
Haha! It absolutely has, and we're so glad. Your designs definitely aren't "teeny" though - lots of bright colours and bold prints. Where do you draw inspiration from?
Living in Africa, you'd think my inspirations would be more Afrocentric. And once upon a time they probably were. But I now find myself gravitating towards the simplicity and boldness of Scandinavian design. I love the way their designs, from furniture to product design to textiles, are so simple and clever, but haven't lost that human touch. Personality is also such a strong component in their work, as is color – they are so good at mixing up scrumptious, unexpected color palettes. Scandi design makes me smile. It has a strong emotional pull for me.
I love that you've taken the very simple aesthetics of Scandi design but managed to make them pop. What are some more interesting facts about your designs?
It's really important to me to have iSpy products be as handmade as possible. A lot of my formal graphic design training centered around hand rendered design and illustration, so it's always been close to my heart. I believe this adds something special and gives my products a little bit of soul. I also want to support fellow Knysnarians wherever possible. All my designs are meticulously screenprinted by hand by a small family-run studio called The Natural Hand and my products are sewn by a jolly group of township ladies called Women of Vision. The leather components of my totes are sewn by the local shoe repair guy who operates just around the corner from our shop, so my bags take their place in the queue of shoes waiting for repairs.
That sounds like an amazing little community you've built up. Ok, last question. It obviously has to be "I Spy, with my little eye, something beginning with..."
...world domination, one town at a time ;-)

We can't say we'd mind! Living in a world full of colour and pretty prints sounds awesome, to be honest. You can see more of Lauren's work in the iSpy Hello Pretty store, and get in touch on Facebook.

Save the Rhino with Hello Pretty!

The save the Rhino cause is near and dear to all of us - we're remembering the beauty and awesomeness of our precious wildlife today:

Happy shopping!

Orange Crush

I have been crushing severely on this gorgeous ring for months, and have sworn to make it mine as soon as possible. The silver setting is crafted into a protea design, and the carnelian is perfect for a pop of colour, winter or summer. Get yours from Sweet Pea here.

We featured this ring in our newsletter this week, along with a curated collection of awesome orange items. There's a new theme every week, so if you'd like to be kept in the loop, sign up below!

Granny Goose - a little slice of heaven

Nice way to start a post hey? With all those yummy food pics?

Now that I have all of your drooly attention (and may be drooling a little bit myself), I will regale you will tales of Granny Goose.

It all started one morning when a lone slipper arrived at my doorstep - and what a slipper it was! It was the fluffiest, warmest slipper in all the land. I insisted on wearing it, even though my other foot was lonely and cold. And with that slipper came a pearly invitation to reunite it with its mate at the Claremont Sleep Lab.

So off I went - who am I to stand in the way of true love? (That is, the instant love I felt for these ah-MAZING slippers)

On arrival I was welcomed like an old friend, handed a cappaccino, and introduced to various bloggers and fancy industry people, including the likes of my girl crush Marcia Margolius (who has met both Tom Dixon and Philippe Starck in person - I shook the hand of the person who shook their hands. Be still my little fangurl heart).

We were introduced to Gaynor Walkey, the founder of Granny Goose, and she told us how she started her business with one cushion and one duvet. She would invite people to lie on them in her lounge, where she would manually add or decrease the feathers until you were your own brand of Goldilocks and it was Just Right. And BAM! Now it's a nationwide powerhouse. You go Gaynor.

(FYI, y'all can relax - the fancy bedding industry is a by-product of the meat industry. No live beasties were harmed in the making of this piece of floaty heaven.)

The customising of Granny Goose goodies stayed with Gaynor throughout, and birthed the concept of the sleep labs - we were soon all taking our shoes off and climbing into the dreamiest bed, (I ended up in bed wih Talya Goldberg - hay gurl haaay) testing out pillows.

To those of you that are worried, we learnt that down bedding is rarely the cause of allergies - dust mites are the nasty culprits, and they don't actually dig down very much. And if you want to wash your bedding, use half the amount of soap (to avoid loads of foam wrecking havock on the feathers), tumble dry just short of being dry, and then leave to dry naturally (not in direct sun though).

The staff were so helpful and friendly and generally lovely, phoning me a few weeks later to check in on how my new pillow was treating me - both in store and after sales service is truly impeccable.

Check out some behind the scenes videos here and here, and some FAQ's at the end of the post.