Page 14 - Designing Ways 290

TRADE WINDS

star local line-up at Décorex Cape Town.
At the show for the first time, Capitec
handmadeAFRICA manifests as a pavilion
and Design MRKT and features over 60
small design businesses hailing from
Morocco to Cape Town. This shopping
experience is the beating heart of African
creativity, where you can browse, try and
buy. LRNCE will be part of the Capitec
handmadeAFRICA pavilion, alongside
other forward-looking brands that are
exploring the future of how things are
made, like Bombisa, African Robotics, Sketch assembly
Sizwe Sama, Kind Kid, Roxas, Bambizulu,
and many others.
In another show of the continent’s rising textile tapestry over the course of the
creative clout, the Décorex Cape Town exhibition. The public can watch the
Designers of the Year 2025 have been piece grow in real time as Reform Studio
revealed as Reform Studio. This Egyptian transforms waste into a visual metaphor
heavyweight is behind the award-winning for interdependence and ecological unity.
eco-innovation Plastex, a textile made This evolving artwork will later travel to
from discarded plastic bags. Founded by Décorex Joburg, where the completed
Hend Riad and Mariam Hazem, Reform tapestry will be unveiled.
Studio is reviving Egypt’s thousand-year- ‘Hend and Mariam will be there in
old weaving traditions and reshaping person for all four days of the show,’
them for a more sustainable future. says Hayward. ‘Come and say hi. Ask
A dedicated Designer of the Year stand a question. Chat about sustainability,
tells the full story of the iconic Plastex weaving, Cairo or even just the colour
innovation. This exhibition-style booth yellow. They’re as passionate as they are
will feature homeware, accessories and approachable, and they’re genuinely
textiles that trace the entire circular excited to meet the South African design
manufacturing process, showing visitors community.’
how waste is transformed into beautiful, Reform Studio will also be hosting
functional design while teaching them two Future Talks sessions, one on Friday
more about the studio’s mission to blend 6 June and the other on Sunday 8 June.
sustainability with heritage craft. And in an additional touch of thoughtful
In a bold second act, Reform Studio creativity, they will design the ribbon
will also debut an interactive sculptural that will be cut by the Executive Mayor
installation titled We Are All Woven of Cape Town, Geordin Hill-Lewis, at the Nosso Ceramiquinho
Together. Crafted from setup waste official opening ceremony on Thursday
collected onsite - including wrapping, 5 June, signalling the beginning of four
boxes, tape and other materials discarded days of design and décor delight. with brands such as Dolce&Gabbana,
during the show build - this live weaving A coup for Décorex Joburg’s Future Cassina and Rizzoli International. In July
activation will Talks stage is Milan-based speaker 2022 she became the editorial director of
invite visitors Federica Sala. An independent curator the quintessentially eclectic magazine The
to witness the and design advisor, Sala has been involved Good Life Italia.
creation of a with the Centre Pompidou in Paris, the Lastly, Décorex Joburg’s Designer of
monumental Milan International Fair of Modern and the Year 2025 is the multi-award-winning
Contemporary Art, the Milan Triennial, architect and designer Charles O Job,
the ADI Design Museum and originally from Lagos and currently based
more, and in Zurich. Recently, Job was a guest of the
inaugural edition of the Design Biennale
Rotterdam 2025.
Already established as the continent’s
foremost design authority, Décorex Africa
is well on its way to becoming a beacon
for the globe.
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14 Issue 290 • dw