BRED IN THE

WRITTEN BY - LIN SAMPSON

Hanneli Rupert is the embodiment of genesis.

anneli Rupert is the embodiment of genesis. With her bright projects, and clever ideas, she has given birth to a new world.

Standing in the shadows of the darkened emporium, Merchants on Long, its owner seems to radiate light. Hanneli Rupert’s caramel coloured skin is set off by a swag of accessories, a long gold Piaget chain, a present from her father and a gold Cartier watch that belonged to her paternal grandmother.

Her armoury of accessories has become her trademark.

‘I love adornment and traditional wear,’ she says. ‘I love the fact that in Africa, people are often brave enough to incorporate it into their day-to-day dressing.’ And this, she points out, makes for clothes with narrative, ensembles that hint at stories beyond the ordinary.

‘I am so influenced by the colours of Africa. When go to London with my normal wardrobe feel like a freak. Everyone in London will be in black then I’ll be dressed in multicoloured shweshwe prints (a beguiling all-cotton fabric produced locally on copper rollers and named after the sound a skirt makes when you walk). Here people celebrate colour. I think it reflects a generally jolly outlook on life.’ is these genes that she brings to her projects, but it is her personal style, her compelling charm and easygoing manner that makes everyone sit up and take note. She has a tremendous respect for people, especially her employees and she exudes a natural happiness that is simply enchanting.

‘Can you believe it, used to go to school barefoot,’ she says. This is indeed hard to believe when you look at this well-put-together woman. But perhaps her expressive dress sense has its origins in these barefooted jaunts.

Hanneli is the youngest daughter of Johann Rupert, the forward-looking and imaginative entrepreneur who has stamped both the local and international business scenes with his critical intelligence and acute sense of business.

‘On my mother’s side of the family,’ she tells me, ‘they are all lawyers and artists. My maternal grandmother Donna Downie is my greatest artistic inspiration. She is incredible actually. At 81 she went to Burning Man, she still does yoga and teaches art to children from the townships.

After leaving art school Hanneli lived in Greece for a while just painting. ‘I was very solitary, a recluse really. felt I was too young to be shut away but didn’t want to go commercial with my art. It seemed like selling out. I needed to do something more structured, something I could market.’

When she returned home three years ago, she started various projects spearheaded by her shop Merchants on Long. With its emphasis on job creation and small-business development, the shop is a lush repository of what Africa has to offer. There are hats as big as huts, crocheted out of plastic bags, and thin rubbery bathing suits in yolky yellows and cobalt blues.

“I was raised to appreciate beautiful environments from a young age, but it’s only when I rst went to London that I realised exactly how fortunate I was to have grown up where I did.”

On my father’s side they are very creative and very good at marketing. I am very lucky that on both sides there is an understanding of rectitude and integrity. I have been brought up in this way and these values are very important to me.’

At 27 she is emerging from the chrysalis of a protected background with startling professional acumen. The Ruperts are a notoriously private family and Hanneli is wary of journalists and chooses her words carefully, often saying, ‘No, let me rephrase that ...’

After leaving school she went to England and studied art at Wimbledon College of Art, doing five years of intensive painting and winning prizes for her skill. ‘I do miss it but for the moment have put it aside. It is not something you can do half time. But I do think my training has helped me in the designs do now.’

She recently launched Okapi, a range of handbags that hints at her ability as award-winning artist and draws on her particular love for Pre-Raphaelite artist, John William Waterhouse. ‘He is not my most favourite but I am very inspired by the myths and legends he reworks. I used some of his works as a foundation for the Okapi fashion shoot. All the bags were named after African goddesses and I recreated works like the Lady of Shallot in an African setting.’

‘The handbag launch was really magical,’ says Binky Newman of Design Afrika, ‘she turned her shop into a forest with real trees and a peat floor. There were branches coming down from the roof that formed a leafy canopy with stuffed animals and other wild life paraphernalia: a little eye here, a big swooping fish eagle there and a background track of birdsong.’

You notice the old ivory-coloured bangles and big glass beads like blotches of gelatine that line the shelves while your eyes dart from the of eau-de-nil skirts in shagreen-type fabric to the swathes of finely woven raffia, the amber, coral and imitation tortoise-shell, and the miscellany of scarves in a haze of tigerish colours, topaz and aquamarine clotting into scarlet.

‘This,’ she says unclasping a chain and balancing on the palm of her hand a small metal object, ‘is what the new chains for the Okapi bags is going to look like.’

She chose the name Okapi because although it is a real animal, it also has an element of the mythical and very few people have seen one. ‘It’s often referred to as the African unicorn. In the wild they are rare, but there are still some in the Ituri Forest in the Congo.’

These bags, with their semi-structured, easy style are her latest addition to a raft of entrepreneurial projects that started less than two years ago and which she has master-minded with the acumen of a seasoned entrepreneur.

Like her father her roots are embedded in local soil and her eyes shine at the mere mention of anything made in Africa. ‘My commitment really is to Africa in quite a profound sense. feel that anyone who has food on their plate and lives here has a responsibility to make the country work.’

Part of what attracts her to the continent is a sense of mysticism, the potent ju-ju of the talisman and respect for the ancestors. Her mind is open to serendipity and chance.

‘I met an African prince once; his grandfather raised Mandela. He was fascinated by the horns on the Okapi bag and this got

Client Topco Media

Project

Magazine Design

Rationale

To design an annual magazine from start to finish. Brand advertisements provided.

Applications Used Adobe Photoshop Adobe InDesign

To view full magazine click here: https://issuu.com/topcomedia/docs/top500_12thedition