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As voted by the public for this year’s Most Beautiful Object in South Africa competition at Design Indaba 2011.
And it is The Dreams for Africa Chair by by Woza Moya:
Winning design
The press release says that “The Dreams for Africa Chair invites people from all walks of life to sit in the chair and share their dreams. In 2009, 160 women from the Valley of 1 000 Hills in KwaZulu-Natal came together to create a legacy of hope. Eight weeks later the women of the Woza Moya income-generation project finished their creation. Supported by the Hillcrest Aids Centre Trust, the chair is travelling around South Africa and abroad. The chair is a celebration of local craftsmanship and the rich and unique beauty of Zulu beadwork.”
I wasn’t in Cape Town for the Design Indaba. But I did get to two of the lectures at the simulcast venue in Johannesburg (at University of Johannesburg’s wonderful Arts Centre) and on Friday I fell in love with the Executive Creative Director Google Creative Lab, Robert Wang for loving his wife.
Design Indaba 2011 was subtitled A better world through creativity. The man started his presentation asking what a better world would look like. And this would mean that the 3m radius around each one of us is the most important part of our world, and this should be the area we most try to impact positively through our behaviour and design.
About his happy wife he says a successful marriage requires 5 positive interactions for every negative 1. And the more surprising the positive interaction the better. A bunch of flowers on Valentine’s day doesn’t count.
Why do anything, he asks? What is your motivation? If it’s true, it could be good. And do things that matter. And always ask how many people you are helping.
Wong also showed us lots of lovely things including this beautiful love story:
Gold and slinky
The dress which I love, it’s all slinky and smooth, is a Calvin Klein Collection dress. She of course has the body for it. I say it’s gold, but others are saying it’s silver. On her feet which we can’t see she wore Brian Atwood’s gold leather “Martina” pumps. And she wore earrings, a brooch and ring from the Louis Vuitton high jewellery collection, “L’Ame du Voyage.”
Kate Middleton, in this picture, looks absolutely beautiful, sophisticated. (Ignore her husband-to-be’s bald patch). Something about the windswept hair and those tended (Thanks Pat!) eyebrows.
She reminds me of that 53-year-old French style icon, Inès de la Fressange (below), who was once the living personification of Chanel. I think she still is.
There has been a raging debate over the last couple of years about using too-thin models. Bad role models. Must be unhealthy. While others say that these models are just born thin. This model Martyna Budna (in the long black pants) who showed for Mark Fast at the London Fashion Week, and others like Chloe Memisevic (below) this season’s hottest model, caused another controversy this week.
What do you think? Horrific? Or is this just what some girls look like, and they show the clothes off best?
A few months ago (22 July) we wrote a little story about What’s more alive than you, a project which supports great innovative, and some wacky, design ideas.
Anyway the shoes we featured in the story were these ones: 
I was a bit slow to notice that at the Grammy awards, Esperanza Spalding who won the Best New Artist at the event earlier this month, was wearing these very shoes designed by Liza Frederika Aslund and made from recyclable stuff.
Last week I was amazed while trying to find information about Patrick Holford that (on Friday) Google’s top listings were all Holford’s websites and sites promoting his books. Today the Healthy Curiousity website is up there – it wasn’t on Friday. Anyway after I met Holford and wrote my story, I met a friend for a drink who told me about Ben Goldacre’s book Bad Science. I read it late Friday night after watching a fashion show at JAG, and couldn’t put the book down. In fact I had to wake my husband up to tell him what I was finding out – a lot. Goldacre discredits much of the science Holford uses to back his claims. You have got to read it. I also found the Holford Watch website. I changed the story.
And then yesterday, I was delighted to find that the TAC has launched its own website, Quackdown, tracking quacks and their dangerous claims.
It’s beautiful this Margaux bag. And will be available at Max Mara in the Hyde Park Centre (011 325 5760) and at the V+A Waterfront (021 418 9447) sometime soon.
But its price will be between 10 and 14 thousand rand. Prohibitive for most of us.
I’ve just read Cristoph Lenz’s review of the Faithless concert in Cape Town last weekend.
The Grand West Arena is not really the type of venue that will render you speechless in awe of the surroundings. And it definitely wasn’t geared to catering for such a large influx of fans in such a short span of time. …. It was in fact so bad, that it was basically impossible to procure any kind of drinks without missing a substantial block of the concert.
It sounds like they, down there, had a similar experience to us at Gallagher Convention Centre up here. I went on Saturday night hoping for a night of dancing. But instead spent far too much time hanging outside with throngs of young angry people waiting to get through the security entrance. Only one small gate was open for the ticket checking. The queues were way too long and the movement too slow. There wasn’t a sign of security. If anything had gone wrong, it could have turned very nasty. By the time we got to the gate, the people manning that entrance hurried the process along, and we weren’t checked for anything – drugs, weapons. The bar was a disaster. A friend stood at the bar for an hour to get a warm beer. We got into the hall after the opening act, and 15 minutes after Faithless had started.
The music was great. But no thanks to another concert at Gallagher Estate. Very bad. I’d hate to be there for an event when something goes wrong.
But I see that Fifi from The Social had a special treat in Newtown. This sounds more like it.
