Celebrated international designers collaborated with South African crafters and designers at Africa’s international design fair, GUILD, in Cape Town, in late February and early March.

The fair, which took place at the Victoria & Alfred Waterfront, was considered a fillip for South African designers, who are attracting global interest.

“We’re holding our own against the best design in the world,” fair director Trevyn McGowan said.

This year, the legendary Los Angeles-based Haas brothers, Simon and Nikolei, premiered their new locally produced collection at GUILD.

They worked with South Africa’s well-known beading company, Monkeybiz & Bronze Age Foundry, to produce ‘Afreaks’, an exhibition of animallike forms named satirically after celebrities, like Tail-lor Swift and Al Gor-illa.

“Our historical craft is being used in ground-breaking ways by the top designers in the world,” McGowan told Engineering News.

Monkeybiz also worked with Haas Brothers in a three- to four-year project, creating full-time employment for women crafters in South Africa.

McGowan said various collaborations with internationally recognised designers would have a significant impact for the global profile of local companies, while the interest in South African design had the potential to grow this sector of the economy.

She added that design exports from South Africa were doubling every year, with overseas buyers showing particular interest.

The most expensive piece on exhibition at the GUILD design fair is expected to fetch R700 000.

Renowned New York gallery R & Company returned to the design fair for a second year, while siblings Mary-Lynn and Carlo Massoud, from Beirut, Lebanon, have joined forces with Capetonian ceramicists and metalworkers for their body of work.

Frederik Molenschot, from the Netherlands, has worked with Swazi women to create a series of four works, called ‘Sleeping Swaziland’, including one made with woven sisal.

“By working together with a group of won-derful women from Swaziland, we removed the distance between my studio in the Nether- lands and the workshop in Swaziland. “The manner of production and the used material intensify the subject of the work and make it into a very site-specific piece – in and about Swaziland,” commented Molenschot.

South African sculptor Mamba Kwedza exhibited his huge but intricate chair in the shape of a hand. “To me, it’s like the ‘hand of God’ – like the Creator holding you in the palm of his hand,” said Kwedza. The sculptor, who works from a studio in Hout Bay, Cape Town, uses recycled wood and says he has been passionate about his work ever since he left school 25 years ago.

Kwedza’s exhibit formed part of the artisan side of the fair and is staged by Watershed at the V & A Waterfront, where South African design and craft are on sale.

A fusion of traditional craft skills and contemporary design was also on display in wirework designs under the Zenzelu name. Designer Marisa Fick-Jordaan started her initiative with telephone wire weavers in an informal settlement in Durban. The project had grown to include 350 home-based craft producers in four different countries.

The GUILD design fair, which attracted worldwide acclaim and over 8 500 visitors during its inaugural fair during the Word Design Capital year in Cape Town last year, ended on March 1.