Tag Archives: Martha Stewart

Design Indaba Expo 2011 showcases Cape Town as design capital of South Africa!

Yesterday I became excited about another dimension of Cape Town – I attended the Design Indaba Expo, the first time that I have attended any aspect of the Design Indaba in its 16 year history.   I am so sorry that I was not better informed about this amazing event in the local newspapers or on radio, and had it not been for Twitter I would not have known about it.   I was blown away by the quality and diversity of design, by mainly Cape Town based designers, in the jam-packed Cape Town International Convention Centre exhibition hall, and must congratulate Ravi Naidoo and his Design Indaba team for the excellent organisation, and leading-edge design on display.  I would urge all design-lovers in Cape Town to visit the Design Indaba Expo this weekend.

There is such an overwhelming number of exhibitors, in relatively small stands, that one blindly moves from one stand to another, trying to not miss anything in the vast hall.   No exhibitor map or list is provided when one buys the ticket outside the hall, and the Design Indaba Info stand is in the centre of the hall (not visible when one enters), and I only saw it near the end of my long walk through the exhibition.   Here I was able to obtain a “Visitors Guide”, which lists each of the roughly 250 exhibitors, and contains the floor plan, so that one can find the exhibitors, as well as the programme for the fashion shows and film festival, forming part of the Design Indaba programme.  Designers were chosen by a panel of industry experts, the Visitors Guide explains.   What I did observe is that many designers are brand new at their design businesses, and rather poor at their marketing, not having business cards and/or brochures with them, or having handed all of them out during the first day of the Expo.  Pierre le Roux was one of the most interesting designers at the Expo, in my opinion, but has no business card and not even a website.  Pierre described his furniture as being works of art more than functional seating.  To obtain further information and contact details of all the designers, one has to buy  a “Buyers Guide” at R100, which I decided to do, to use at a later stage – sadly Pierre’s details are not in the Buyers’ Guide either.  This information deficiency was the only flaw in the Expo that I experienced.   

Near the entrance was an impactful rainbow-coloured display to attract attention to Cape Town’s bid for Design Capital of the world in 2014.  Attendees were invited to sign the base of the display, to show their support for the bid.   Next to it stood a five-tier cake by Charly’s Bakery, which reflected different aspects of Cape Town.   in the exhibition hall one can loosely pick up a grouping of similar designers, including furniture, fashion, jewellery, craft, interior design, product design, advertising, architecture, publishing and many more design disciplines.

The furniture exhibits probably attracted the most attention, because the exhibitors required more space, and they tended to not be confined within exhibition stand walls.  I was impressed by the differentness of an outdoors chair made from pipes (left), as well as the new stainless steel tub chair from the Sofa Studio in Franschhoek.  Other furniture designers at the Expo include the Western Cape Furniture Initiative, Haldane Martin, Cabinetworks, Pierre Cronje, Raw Studios, Recreate, Pedersen + Lennard, …XYZ Design, and a most cleverly named Flower Power, making lamps shaped like proteas. 

The 24 jewellery stands probably were the most popular in general, attracting a lot of visitors.  The work exhibited was more modern and contemporary, some quirky, very creative, some art, some organic, some romantic, and all unique and non-commercialised.  The University of Stellenbosch Jewellery Design department also exhibited its students’ work.  Ceramic exhibitors include Liesel Trautman, Diana Ferreira, fun Zizamele Ceramics, John Bauer, The Potter’s Workshop, Tamarillo Ceramics & Design, Clementina Ceramics,  Hennie Meyer Ceramics, Imiso Ceramics, Sootcookie Ceramics, Tania Babb Ceramics and Wonki Ware.   Craft exhibitors include Woodhead’s, Usisi Designs, Cupcake Country, The Cape Craft & Design Institute, Phumani Paper, Design Afrika, Monkeybiz, The Letterpress Company,  Nicfredman Art and Design, Molten, The Beloved, and many more.   Fashion took up a lot of exhibition space, and was popular.  Exhibitors include Tjerrie, Matblac, GOOD Clothing, Coast & Koi, Spilt Milk, BlueCollarWhiteCollar, Homework, Mielie, Township Patterns, DURCHZUG, FACT, Baie Nice, Continent Africa, and MeMeMe.   Lifestyle designers exhibiting are Pepper Plum Designs, Yda Walt Studio, Flick Glass, Fundi Light & Living, Carrol Boyes, Chic Revolution, Tintown, Anatomy Design, and Ikhaya.  Some of the names of the designer businesses are as creative as their craft!

There are two separated design areas within the Design Indaba Expo.  The first is The Salon Privé, ‘focusing on the crème de la crème of South African design.  The Salon Privé is independently curated and designers are encouraged to use the platform to launch a new product or product range.’    In this space the Ardmore ceramics table attracted attention, as did the Veuve Clicquot champagne bar, where I indulged in a glass of their Rosé bubbly at R99, served in a most beautiful unusual champagne glass, nothing like I have ever seen before, without a stem.     Other exhibitors are architects Haldane Martin, Johannesburg-based interior designers Tonic (which one hopes will open in Cape Town too), Willowlamp, Zenzulu, Egg Designs, Ronel Jordaan, ZENZULU, and more.  Close by was a collection of small stands dedicated to “Emerging Creatives”, but it is not explained in the Visitors Guide, other than that there are 60 first-time exhibitors, under the heading “New Kids on the Block”.  The Department of Trade and Industry also had a conglomerate pavilion with about ten exhibitors, including Abode Designer, Veldt designers, Zan Zan décor, Drift Furniture, Keiskamma Art, Master Wires and Deesigned Beads.

For the hungry and thirsty Expo-goers, one can buy Woolworths’ coffees and rolls, or buy sandwiches and other foods from the Earth Fair Market.   Grolsch has an interestingly designed stand too.   Whilst I sat down at the table to have my cappuccino, I had the most wonderful experience in reconnecting with Mark Robinson, whom I had last seen twenty years ago when we both consulted to the then Colman Foods.  The lady that took his seat when he left shared a background in PR and marketing with me.   This was another enriching dimension of the Expo. 

Alongside the Design Indaba Expo is the update of the Cape Town Design Route, and this is an exciting longer-term manifestation of Cape Town’s design wealth, in that tourists and locals can visit more than fifty designers in the city throughout the year.   The Cape Town Design Route designers are all exhibiting at the Design Indaba Expo.  The updated Cape Town Design Route 2011 map was lying at the entrance to the exhibition, without one being alerted to this wonderful design highlight.  I had read about the Design Route by chance last year, and this is the first time that I have seen a map for it.  I was so inspired about the Cape Town Design Route at the time that I wrote a blogpost about it, and will write a new one about the Cape Town Design Route 2011.

Film and fashion events take place inside the Expo throughout the exhibition days, and the programme of events is detailed in the Visitors’ Guide.   Childrens’ design and art workshops are also on the programme throughout the weekend.   

Last year the Design Indaba became infamous due to the spectacle Martha Stewart made of herself as the keynote speaker at the Design Indaba Conference – this year the Design Indaba will be remembered for the most wonderful showcase of design in Cape Town!

Design Indaba Expo, Cape Town International Convention Centre, Cape Town.  Tel (021) 465-9966.  www.designindaba.com.  Today 10h00 – 20h00, Sunday 10h00 – 18h00.

Chris von Ulmenstein, Whale Cottage Portfolio: www.whalecottage.com  Twitter: @WhaleCottage

USA Design Queen Stewart flops at Design Indaba in Cape Town

What was Ravi Naidoo, owner of Interactive Africa and ‘Mr Cool’, who boasts FIFA as a client, and organiser of 13 Design Indaba’s to date, thinking when he decided to put Martha Stewart on the programme for the 2010 Design Indaba, which ended this weekend?

Billing Stewart as the lead Design Indaba speaker on its website, Stewart was described as speaking about “Food Design” at the Conference part of the Design Indaba, about “the creative principles and practical ideas that have made her America’s most trusted guide to stylish living.  Millions of consumers rely on Martha Stewart as their arbiter of style and taste and their guide to all aspects of everyday living – from cooking and entertaining to decorating and gardening, and much more”.  Stewart’s profession is stated as : entrepreneur, TV host and author.  

None of these “credentials” would have necessarily made Stewart eligible as a speaker at a conference addressed and attended by the world’s top designers.  So what went wrong? Firstly, through Twitter, one could track Stewart’s movements around the country, from the time she left New York on SAA, praising the airline highly (sponsored ticket?), she was met in Johannesburg and taken on a safari to Singita (sponsored?), and then arrived in Cape Town, where she stayed at the One & Only Cape Town (sponsored?).  Stewart’s talk was mid-morning on day three.  From her Tweets, it was clear that she had made no effort to attend any of the other talks on the first two days, choosing rather to go sightseeing and winetasting, but here her brand endorsements stopped.   It is the owners of the wine estates (which included Warwick and Graham Beck) that made one aware of her stops there on Twitter.  She did Tweet about her lunch at Waterkloof, mistakenly referring to it being in Stellenbosch!  Given that she has close to 2 million followers on Twitter, this would have had a good marketing benefit for the Cape.

At Design Indaba, the conference organisers as well as bizcommunity.com, were Tweeting from the conference.   Here is the take on Martha Stewart’s talk by Louise Marsland, ex-editor of and writer for bizcommunity.com and editor of AdVantage magazine, who Twittered the whole Conference every few seconds:

‘The always spectacular Design Indaba will this year be remembered, not only for the fabulous speakers such as Harry Pearce, Bruce Nussbaum, Priyush Pandey, Stefan Bucher, Mokena Makeke, etc, but for the worst presentation it’s (sic) ever hosted – by famous ‘homemaker’ Martha Stewart. Who will also now be credited with launching the first local “twitcom”. [view twitterfall)   Delivering a presentation more suited to the Krugersdorp Vrouefederasie or the Belville (sic) Housewives Scrapbooking Circle, she managed to inspire a mass walkout in both auditoriums – practically unheard of in the history of Design Indaba, which is the industry’s premier conference and expo showcase in the creative industries and an inspiration destination annually.  And so we get another twiord (twitter word): she was ‘twitter slapped’ (twitapped?) by the twitterverse. Twerrible.  The complaints centred around that fact that she used her presentation as a sales pitch (given how she is about to launch her ‘Martha Stewart’s Cupcakes’ in South Africa) and spoke to these highly creative and key delegates with a lack of awareness that was astounding. With the likes of local agency heads and creative directors and world-renowned designers and architects in the audience, you don’t talk about doing ‘glitter by numbers’ pictures and show 29 pictures of yourself holding various farm life (unless that’s part of your creative installation!). The laughter was cringe worthy indeed. The result was a walkout.  Basically she was boring and out of touch and self-promotional. Everything that Design Indaba is not. Design Indaba is about collaboration, sustainability, social entrepreneurship, less conspicuous consumption and looking towards redesigning a new world where product has less impact on the environment. General opinion was summed up by the biting comment of MC Michael Bierut as Stewart left the stage: “Dr Craig Venter is to the human genome as Martha Stewart is to paint chips.” Ouch!The subtle quips continued through subsequent speakers in the afternoon on Friday with references to the ‘millions’ to be made out of design (not) and pleas for people not to put gold glitter on their food, or anything else for that matter. Speakers following her were thanked profusely for “showing us what Design Indaba is all about” by Bierut. Groans and laughter greeted each aside.  Delegates who walked out gathered around Bizcommunity.com’s live ‘twitterfall’ screen outside the main auditorium which live-fed the deluge of tweets to delegates. “It was hysterical,” said one executive creative director of a leading SA ad agency. “The tweets were hugely entertaining, much more so than her speech!”  Another creative director pointed out that the real story was how fantastically social media worked in this case. “People didn’t like her… so they said so. That’s the real story. Brilliant.”   Delegates and journalists attending didn’t pull any punches, with scathing references to her ‘lack of a glittering performance’ and the fact that she could write a book on ‘How to clear a room’, rather.’

Interestingly Design Indaba, which ran its own Twitter feed, did not Tweet about Stewart after she arrived in the country, almost as if they could see a problem coming.   Every other speaker’s content was Tweeted about by them.  There was a deathly silence surrounding Martha Stewart on @designindaba and Naidoo has not been seen to make any statements in the newspapers that have run prominent stories on this flop (Sunday Times, Weekend Argus)!

Yesterday Stewart addressed a less distinguished audience, who paid R 250 to attend a breakfast session sponsored by Woolworths.   From the blog and Twitter feedback it appears that Stewart used the same talk, but attendees had lowered their expectations, given the feedback about her talk the previous day.   Some comments seemed self-justifying, others remained critical: read Cape Town News Blog’s report here.

Stewart appeared unaffected by the furore, happily continuing her Tweeting about beautiful Cape Town and hoping that she could get up Table Mountain, after the gale force southeaster winds had prevented her from accessing this design icon of the city.  In fairness to her, she did not make any negative comments on Twitter about her visit to South Africa, and was gracious to her hosts and sponsors in acknowledging them, the main ones at least!

Martha Stewart’s visit to Cape Town will be remembered for all the wrong reasons.

Chris von Ulmenstein, Whale Cottage Portfolio: www.whalecottage.com