Design Indaba favourites

I’ve spent the past two days wandering around the Design Indaba at the Cape Town ICC, amazed by the ingenuity of South African designers. There is some seriously interesting stuff on display.

Here are a few that stood out for me:

Egg Design (www.eggandmilk.co.za) makes things of beauty. Its stand is an interlocking wooden puzzle of photographs of its work, and it is astounding. From furniture to lights to interior design of all shapes and sizes, it is clearly a leader in its field. I love it!

Meld (www.meld.co.za) makes the most beautiful earrings you ever did see. Finely etched perspex and veneer swallows, love birds and “birdies” hang from the branches of its stand, with über-cool wallpaper in the background. Whimsical and sweet, it also makes necklaces and gorgeous flower brooches. Bird fever seems to have hit South Africa at the moment, but these are a cut above anything else I’ve seen.

Woo-men dolls (www.woomen.co.za) have always been favourites of mine (they’re hand-made comic plush toys — for kids and adults — and no two are ever alike). At the indaba, though, the creators have taken their dolls to a new place (which is funny, because they encourage taking Woo-men dolls to exotic locations and then sending in photos of them) by offering blank dolls and decorating kits, so you can make your own doll. That’s if you can resist Carrot Head, Ninja, Space Baby and Woohoo, never mind the retro collection of dogs, ellies and horses.

Clever Little Monkey (www.cleverlittlemonkey.co.za) sells amazingly inventive children’s furniture and decorations. Think clear plastic toys filled with shredded paper, beds that look like they’re straight out of a picture book, and without doubt the coolest cot I’ve ever seen. I’m not in the market for a cot (any time soon), but this perspex-and-wood wonder is so beautiful I wouldn’t mind having it as a piece of furniture!

So those are my top four from the weekend.

I’m working at the Indaba today and tomorrow, so I’ll report back with more favourites on the morrow …