Wanted October 2021

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ED’S LETTER

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EDITOR.

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portrait

Siphiwe Mpye

Lesedi Molefi

What doesn’t kill you makes you come outside

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lmost a decade after the late and mighty US critic Christopher Hitchens exploded Friedrich Nietzsche’s contention that “Whatever doesn’t kill me makes me stronger,” I found myself revisiting the 2012 Vanity Fair essay that laid to ruin a much-parroted affirmation.

As oesophageal cancer ate away at the great contrarian’s body — but never his wit, dexterity with the pen or commitment to unbelief — he declared: “In the brute physical world, and the one encompassed by medicine, there are all too many things that could kill you, don’t kill you, and then leave you considerably weaker.” And well he might have held that belief, as the vessel that carried such a fierce intellect became “viciously weakened”, not only by disease but also “by the very medicine that is keeping [him] alive”.

Indeed, sometimes that which fails to kill you can break you down, make you more cynical and more resigned to the

CONTRIBUTORS /

business day editor

Lukanyo Mnyanda

writer / researcher

subeditor

photographer

Ntombenhle Shezi

Iolandi Pool

Michael Oliver Love

inevitability of capitulation in one form or the other. As our unwelcome invader of multiple strains has shown, weeks after it has tried to kill you and failed it can trigger pre-existing ailments that can forever alter your quality of life.

But it is also true that what doesn’t kill you can present an opportunity to start over, to give new meaning to the miraculous fact of your still-beating heart, irrespective of its strength.

With the ambivalent early-September weather — one of global warming’s bitter gifts — the true beginning of spring now comes towards the end of the month. As I write this, I come off a week in which I attended two events in two cities. The sun was out, the air was still, and the only thing bigger than the smiles were the drinks. I couldn’t imagine the amount of collective loss hidden behind the shrieks of delight as old friends reunited, but delight they did, despite it all.

Here’s hoping that whatever didn’t kill you over these trying two years has left you, if not stronger, then more appreciative of life, and — after a detour to your nearest vaccination station — as ready to come outside as we are.

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1. Lukanyo Mnyanda / is the editor of Business Day — South Africa’s daily business title of record — and, as such, is at the pulse of all things fiscal, although he has never bought a single stock or used a financial adviser (but don’t hold that against him, read his column in this issue for context). He is also our boss — a fact he likes to bat away at every turn, as he goes about influencing the thinking that shapes our political economy. Previously, he covered the markets for Bloomberg in the United Kingdom and Joburg and was the stuff of legend as a student at Rhodes University in the mid-’90s.

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2. Iolandi Pool / is a subeditor by trade and a nitpicker by inclination.

She has been obsessing over errant apostrophes and delinquent commas ever since starting out as a subeditor at a daily newspaper, and worked for various publishing houses and think tanks before ending up at Arena Holdings’ luxury magazines division. When she’s not in front of a screen she’s usually behind a book. Otherwise, she can be found walking a dog, attending the theatre (pre-pandemic), strong-arming friends into going for a coffee (pre-pandemic) or just planting random things.

Pretoria born and bred, she is now a lover of all things Joburg.

F O R

3. Michael Oliver Love / Young and blessed with a delicate eye, photographer Michael Oliver Love’s work — across fashion, advertising, and portraiture — is prone to wild social media virality. The Capetonian, who, incredibly, has no formal photography training (he studied media, writing, and gender studies), has shot for KLûK CGDT, Kinfolk, Superbalist, Vogue Arabia, Burberry, and, with this month’s exquisite fashion editorial, Wanted.

His passion project is Pansy Magazine, a smart and visually rich men’s digital magazine, conceived through a queer lens that subverts normative masculinities.

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4. Ntombenhle Shezi / is a writer, researcher, and the communication and partnerships manager at the French Institute of South Africa. She is currently completing her MA in History of Art at the Wits School of Arts, and her research interests are gender and photographic histographies. She is also a sample nerd who gets incredibly excited when she can identify the origin of a beat, break or loop. When not detecting beat origins, she feeds her obsession with Jason Sudeikis as Ted Lasso, her Fridays made infinitely better by notifications on her phone as a new episode goes live. For this issue, she interviewed the artist Billie Zangewa.

WA N T E D O N L I N E . C O . Z A

TEAM / E D I TO R S i p h iwe M pye ( m pye s @ a re n a . a f r i c a ) C R E AT I V E D I R E C TO R A n n a L i n eve l d t ( l i n eve l d ta @ a re n a . a f r i c a ) M A N AG I N G E D I TO R S u z y Jo s e p h s o n 0 7 2 5 9 8 9 2 8 2 ( j o s e p h s o n s @ a re n a . a f r i c a ) J U N I O R D E S I G N E R S C a r i k e d e Ja g e r

01.

Knit, POR; skirt, POR; sunglasses, POR, all Gucci; bag, R2 295, Longchamp; stockings, R1 39O, Wolford; sneaker boot, R18 1OO, Louis Vuitton

and Manelisi Dabata S U B E D I TO R I o l a n d i Po o l FA S H I O N D I R E C TO R S h a r o n A r m s t r o n g ( a r m s t ro n g s @ a re n a . a f r i c a ) FA S H I O N E D I TO R S a h i l H a r i l a l B E AU T Y E D I TO R No k u b o n g a Th u s i ( t hu s i n @ a re n a . a f r i c a ) FA S H I O N I N T E R N No m b u s o Ku m a l o D É C O R D I R E C TO R L e a n a S ch o e m a n ( l e a n a s @ s u n d a y t i m e s. c o. z a ) G R O U P M OTO R I N G E D I TO R D e n i s D r o p p a ( d ro p p a d @ a re n a . a f r i c a )

FINAL EYE Elizabeth Sleith D E S I G N H U B O N L I N E E D I TO R S t e p h e n H aw ( h a w s @ a re n a . a f r i c a ) AC T I N G WA N T E D O N L I N E E D I TO R

Ts h e p o Ts h a b a l a l a

Watch manufacture Rado finds inspiration in the great gardens of the world

Fashion Week doyenne Lucilla Booyzen and designer Clive Rundle in conversation

Architect Anthony Orelowitz turns his gaze inwards

How the global pandemic is affecting property trends in South Africa

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Where form and function meet

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Fashion

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Wa n te d i s a va i l a b l e w i t h B u s i n e s s D a y n a t i o n w i d e .

Subscription enquiries: 086 052 5200 P R I N T E D by Pa a r l M e d i a fo r A re n a H o l d i n g s, H i l l o n E m p i re , 1 6 E m p i re R o a d ( c n r E m p i re a n d H i l l s i d e ro a d s ) , Pa r k tow n , J o h a n n e s b u rg , 2 1 9 3

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Chair credits: Joe Colombo for Kartell/ designed 196O

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BU S I N E S S DAY E D I TO R Lu k a nyo M ny a n d a E D I TO R - AT- L A R G E : L I F E S T Y L E A s p a s i a K a r r a s ( ka r ra s a @ a re n a . a f r i c a ) H E A D : A DV E R T I S I N G S A L E S E B E N G EW E R S C E O A n d r ew G i l l G E N E R A L M A N AG E R : L U X U RY Y vo n n e S h a f f 0 8 2 9 0 3 5 6 4 1 ( s h a ff y @ a re n a . a f r i c a ) AC C O U N T M A N AG E R J o h a n n e s b u rg Ta m a r a N i ch o l s o n 0 8 3 6 0 4 0 9 4 9 ( n i c h o l s o n t @ a re n a . a f r i c a ) AC C O U N T M A N AG E R We s te r n C a p e Samantha Pienaar 082 889 0366 ( p i e n a a r s @ a re n a . a f r i c a ) AC C O U N T M A N AG E R D u r b a n G i n a v a n d e Wa l l 0 8 3 5 0 0 5 3 2 5 ( v d wa l l g @ a re n a . a f r i c a )

Lamborghini Countach: The glorious rebirth of a cult classic

WAT C H E S

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back memories of my granny’s kitchen.

Granny was very proper and would rather die than be without something sweet and savoury to present to guests — even if they dropped in unannounced.

I recall all the machines whizzing and whirling, followed by Operation Clean-Up: finger-licking the sickly sweet remnants until the bowls were spotless.

The smell in the car, however, wasn’t freshly whipped meringue, or guavas and mulberries just plucked from the overladen trees outside, but rather the metallic tang of electric motors and lubricating grease, which I now know to be integral to those memories. Our sense of smell is powerful, but most often taken for granted — as so many people discovered through their unfortunate Covid-related loss of taste and smell in the past 18 months.

As a break from the oppression of winter and government restrictions, hopefully this spring brings the change and rebirth we need. And with it, some healing rays of warmth and the opportunity to indulge all of our senses by connecting with nature in the wilds or in a beautifully considered garden. Human intervention in most things has landed us in a mess, but gardens reveal our ability to co-exist symbiotically. The wild spontaneity of nature has inspired human creativity for centuries, in art, design, music, and science.

While painters, composers, and gardeners have tried to interpret or “control” aspects of nature, watchmakers have navigated its seasonal cycles and worked with its valuable materials. Gardens are a living form of art that condense time and space. From public to private, from traditional to contemporary, from

Gary Cotterell is Wanted’s editorat-large.

COLUMN.

Quality time

Rado True x

The hour of gardening

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ninterrupted views of Lion's Head and Signal Hill, and the magnificent Company’s Garden on my doorstep, contributed significantly to my mental well-being last year. For reasons I chose not to question, the Company’s Garden was also the only park that remained open. I always felt less anxious after a stroll or a run up Government Avenue, with a detour through the rose and herb gardens. I’d also plot the longest route to the Gardens Shopping Centre for supplies, meandering via De Waal Park and the reservoir, taking in the sights,

Great Gardens of t h e Wo r l d

hushed sounds, and heady scents of my nature-enveloped city, rebooted as things came to a standstill.

Scent and emotion have strong ties.

Our olfactory receptors are directly connected to the limbic system — the most primitive part of the brain, believed to be the centre of basic emotions. I was driving back to the city from the southern suburbs recently after collecting a well-maintained, ’70s “Calypso orange” Kenwood Chef A901, which I’d sourced for a friend who’d decided to try their hand at baking.

There was a pleasantly familiar “new” smell in the car that instantly brought

rooftops to follies, gardens such as those at Babylonstoren in the Western Cape, Giardino Giusti in Verona, and the High Line in New York are some of the most inspiring spaces in the world. They offer us some respite from noise pollution and troubles, a place to dream, and a change of tempo as we reset our body clocks.

The success of Rado’s partnership with Grandi Giardini Italiani, an association of major gardens in Italy and Malta, in 2017 was the seed of its True Thinline Nature collection. Four years on, Rado is “celebrating exceptional design, eternal nature, and futuristic materials, in equal measure” with three new models that continue the partnership and extend it to include celebratory gardens around the world. A source of inspiration for a new generation of garden lovers and designers, Great Gardens of the World is a global network of international gardens, garden designers, and landscape architects.

Our featured piece is “Chapter 1” in the new collection. Its polished turquoise, high-tech ceramic case is made from a monobloc construction and frames an exquisite tonal mother-of-pearl dial. The dial decorations are executed in filigree and cloisonné with nature-inspired motifs and jasmine flowers, unobstructed behind rose gold hands. At each index, a Top Wesselton diamond adds a delicate note of brilliance. The titanium case back has a smoked sapphire crystal window for a full view of the Rado calibre R763 automatic movement with an 80-hour power reserve.

The collection is water-resistant to 50m, just in case you get caught in a summer afternoon downpour or have a skinny dip on a nature trail. R42 900-R46 900, rado. com or Treger Group 011 089 6000

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TO DIE FOR After much delay, No Time to Die hits the big screens this month with Daniel Craig making his final appearance as 007. Among his toys is the quintessential Bond watch, an Omega Seamaster 300M,

this time available in a special “James Bond” Numbered Edition, crafted in platinumgold on a black leather strap.

Unique details include a black ceramic bezel ring with a platinum diving scale in positive relief, and a black enamel dial with the familiar spiralling gun-barrel design of the films’ opening sequence.

More at wantedonline.com.

POA, Swatch Group 011 911 1200 or omegawatches.com

COMPLEXITY MADE SIMPLE The H. Moser & Cie

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WATCH THIS SPACE WatchBox, the leader in collectible pre-owned luxury timepieces, has acquired a controlling stake in Swiss independent watchmaker De Bethune, known for its contemporary, avant-garde design interpretations of high watchmaking, made with chronometric precision and in very limited editions.

Its iconic DB28XP with patented floating lugs has a modern and futuristic character. Updated this year in black zirconium with an electric-blue meteorite dial, in an edition of 10. POA, debethune.ch

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NEWS

Streamliner Perpetual Calendar is “complexity

made simple”. The handwound HMC 812 calibre uses the indices to indicate the months via a small red-and-white central hand. The date window at 4 o’clock is updated at midnight through a “Flash Calendar” instantaneous date-change mechanism. In pursuit of minimalism, the leap-year indicator is visible through the sapphire case back. POA, h-moser.com or Boutique Haute Horlogerie 011 325 4119

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Gary Cotterell

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OBJET

production

photography

Judd van Rensburg

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Basic instinct

Crespo Leo mini bag, R19 750, Dolce & Gabbana

Reinterpreting the house’s signature DNA, Dolce & Gabbana’s latest wild offering channels the unnameable spirit of the leopard through covetable outerwear and accessories

STOCKIST DOLCE & GABBANA 011 326 7808

Sahil Harilal

IWC PILOT. ENGINEERED FOR ORIGINALS.

Big Pilot's Watch 43. Ref. 3293:

presence on your wrist with unprecedented

The functional design with its easy-to-read

comfort. The IWC-manufactured 82100 calibre,

dial and distinctive cone-shaped crown has

sapphire cr ystal back, and EasX-CHANGE

ensured the Big Pilot’s Watch of its iconic

rapid strap replacement system are further fea-

IWC-manufactured 82100 calibre · Pellaton automatic

status. Now, for the first time, it is available in

tures of this enormously versatile sports watch.

winding system · 60-hour power reserve · Central hacking seconds · See-through sapphire-glass back ·

a 43-millimetre case that combines a striking

IWC . ENGINEERING DREAMS . SINCE 1868 .

Water-resistant 10 bar · Diameter 43 mm · Stainless steel

IWC Schaffhausen, Switzerland · www.iwc.com

DOWN LOAD TH E N E W IWC APP FOR VIRTUAL TRY- ON

STYLE NOTES

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J U S T F O R KICKS

Nokubonga Thusi

Psst…

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Memo Corfu EDP 75ml, R4 615

come 12 November, Louis Vuitton is changing the shoe game with the maison’s first unisex sneaker, Charlie. Fuelled by the brand’s commitment to sustainability, the sneaker has an eco-responsible design made of 90% recycled and bio-sourced materials — right down to the recycled laces and tongue patch. The supple and shock-absorbing sole

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ur olfactory passports are full, thanks to Memo’s ability to transport us to the world’s most paradisiacal destinations through scent. This time, we travel to the Greek island of Corfu in the turquoise waters of the Ionian Sea for the newest addition to the Graines Vagabondes collection.

Memo Corfu is a floral, fruity, modern chypre overdosed with musk, bringing to mind sunkissed skin and leisurely ocean dips. Be transported by notes of rhubarb, citrus, basil, and rose oil in the tart opening, with a delicate floral bouquet of jasmine and lily of the valley trailing into a creamy, musky base of sandalwood, cedarwood, amber, and tonka.

I N C O L L A B O R AT I O N W I T H WA N T E D

accounts for 50% of the sneaker’s weight and consists of at least 94% recycled rubber, while the upper part is made of a multi-textured synthetic material produced from recycled polyester and a layer of Biopolioli, a cornbased plastic. This guilt-free wardrobe staple blends mobility, comfort, and quality.

Whether you prefer the lowor high-top design, you’ll be glad we let you in early on this scoop. louisvuitton.com

“Hardcore Denim” 02.

Campaign with rapper legend Snoop Dogg

From Greece, with love

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he next time you wear your G-Star RAW denim, say it witcha booty, as the iconic staple gets the West Coast treatment with the D-OGG. As a master of denim and with a strong belief that there is no limit to what denim can do, G-Star RAW blends humour, style, and backside appreciation in its latest global “Hardcore Denim” campaign with rap legend Snoop Dogg.

The campaign, which features his tongue-incheek single Say It Witcha Booty, is a coming together of two true originals, as denim’s timeless and accessible nature echoes Snoop’s authenticity and one-of-akind craftsmanship. g-star.com

THE FOUNDER OF LUXURY BEAUTY BRAND WESTMAN ATELIER TALKS ABOUT ITS INTUITIVE, INNOVATIVE, SKINTEGRITYFIRST APPROACH

STYLE NOTES

01. text

Nokubonga Thusi

main challenges was sourcing active clean ingredients. I never want to make a product that just adds colour to the skin. I want it

hat inspired you to launch Westman

3. Must-have products for the perfect Westman Atelier starter kit? Super

Atelier? I wanted to create

a clean yet luxurious performance brand. There have always been clean brands, and luxury beauty brands, but a combination of the two was still missing.

Performance is paramount to me as a makeup artist, and I knew that whatever I created had to outperform the most luxury of brands to earn its space in my makeup bag! Not only did I want to inspire the consumer to choose a cleaner alternative but I also really wanted to set the standard within the beauty industry, to challenge and welcome other brands to join the clean movement, especially within the luxury space. It’s great to see this approach to clean beauty being adopted by other brands as well, both established and new.

Loaded Tinted Highlight is an incredible highlighting cream that gives you warmth, radiance, and definition in one swipe.

Baby Cheeks Blush Stick is the perfect multi-use product. It comes in the most gorgeous shades for eyes, cheeks, and lips. Lastly, our Vital Skin Foundation Stick is a luxurious cream foundation that instantly gives you radiant, naturallooking skin.

Westman Atelier is available exclusively at skins.co.za

Eternal beauty

W

text

Ingrid Wood

“I

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nspired by the San folk tale that tells the story of the girl who created the stars”, the Graff Tribal high-jewellery collection brings together diamonds — the ultimate emblem of allure and eternity — and the romance of stories passed down through generations. The collection draws on motifs that each carry a meaning: the jewels in New Dawn harness the “glow of the rising sun”, Night Moon is all about the illumination of the gems’ curves, and the sculptured rows of the Graff Gateway are emblematic of new beginnings.

The campaign was photographed on the Atlantis dunes in the Western Cape, when travel restrictions eased during the global lockdown. It makes for a powerful story.

Dolce & Gabbana Alta Moda brooch

hen Dolce & Gabbana presented its latest Alta Moda collection at St Mark’s Square, Venice last month it was not just a kaleidoscopic celebration of high fashion (and a celebration it was — St Mark’s Square had never hosted a fashion show before this) but also a brilliant display of high jewellery. The Alta Moda, Alta Sartoria, Alta Gioielleria, and Alta Orologeria collections of intricate rings, ornate chokers, striking bracelets, dramatic necklaces, and bejewelled timepieces are adorned with citrines, morganites, tanzanites, blue sapphires, diamonds, tourmalines, rubies, and more. Master crafting + Dolce & Gabbana = a sight to behold.

Full-on glamour

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Graff Tribal diamond necklace

to soothe, nourish, and repair the skin. When we started, it was so difficult.

Our labs would constantly tell me “No, not possible,” but I would push — I’m relentless! We’re incredibly fortunate to work with a green chemist who advises us on ingredients as well. Years later it’s still difficult, but there are so many innovations out there. Consumers deserve and want more from their products and I believe the industry is really listening and learning from it.

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W

G U C C I W E S T M A N

2. What are some of the challenges in formulating clean, effective, and luxurious products? One of the

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DOWN TO BUSINESS

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Lukanyo Mnyanda

Lukanyo Mnyanda is the editor of Business Day

COLUMN.

The joys of getting old…

or, at least, a bit older

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found myself reflecting, the other day, on the fact that I’ve never bought a single stock in my life.

And I’ve never had reason to regret any ill-fated dabbling on the stock market.

This is advice I was given by a stockbroker many years ago, when I was starting my career in financial journalism back in the ’90s. He told me the volatility of markets meant that much could change while you were spending a week looking at animals in the Kruger Park or sipping cocktails at the beach.

Unless you could cast an eagle eye over your holdings every single day, you were better off leaving it to the professionals, he told me.

The idea that I might have had my life savings tied up in Steinhoff shares as I was enjoying a nice holiday in Cape Town or elsewhere that fateful December 2017 is something that still sends shivers down my spine.

As it is, I wasn’t on holiday anywhere. I was sitting in a gloomy office in Edinburgh, watching the financial markets and what other people did with the money they were entrusted to look after.

So, I’ve always been rather

conservative with money and savings, and have never owned any assets beyond what I could access via my pension.

But, as one grows older, the question arises as to whether that’s enough.

I think I may have reached that age. Perhaps it’s a bit late, but I trust that my conservative instincts have probably served me well, though I don’t really have answers to the questions that I see being raised in the personal finance sections of newspapers.

Have I got enough money to fund a retirement lifestyle relatively similar to what I have now? I hope so. That’s probably true of most people who read this column.

I was thinking about this as I was watching one of Business Day & Financial Mail’s Investment Dialogues webinars, about the fascinating subject that’s exchange-traded funds. The question that came up was, if you could simply buy into a cheap fund that tracks an index on the JSE, why did you even need someone to give you advice?

Yet another sad sign of being a grown-up?

The idea of having a financial adviser is a subject

I was introduced to later in my reporting life, when I was following asset management companies and investment trends during a time of disruptive regulatory change in Europe. I was relieved to see that I wasn’t alone when I came across a bit of research that showed that in the United States, a country known for a relatively high participation rate in equity markets by ordinary people, only about 30% of consumers had a paidup adviser, and those who did tended to be relatively wealthy.

The perception was that advisers were expensive and only for the rich. With all sorts of platforms offering cheap DIY options, it does look like they may have a problem displaying their value. And with people having been burned by fly-bynight operators, it might be a bad idea to write them off, but where do you find one who’ll look after you rather than their own commissions?

The questions that confront one when one is no longer one’s carefree 20-year-old self! Of course, if more of us had spent more time thinking about this back then, we might have had more carefree holidays to look forward to as old age approaches.

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P P EE EE R R SS II N N C CO ON NV V EE R R SS A A TT II O ON N

PEERS IN CONVERSATION An SA Fashion Week pioneer and a noted fashion designer chat about farm life, architecture, the Joburg inner city, and doing a fashion show for the Chinese Communist Party

LUCILLA BOOYZEN AND

CLIVE RUNDLE

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ucilla Booyzen (LB): How are you guys doing there on the farm?

Clive Rundle (CR): You know, farm life is farm life, it’s got its own rhythm.

One could say it’s pandemic free.

LB: Tell me where you are.

CR: Two minutes outside Plettenberg Bay. From the farm itself, you see the bay, the Outeniqua Mountains, the Swartberg Mountains.

LB: I’ve always wondered: if you could choose between fashion design and architecture, what would you choose?

CR: Architecture. To be a fashion designer you have to be insane. It’s a lot of hard work. Architecture is about building. You draw a drawing; you build a building. Fashion is somehow never complete. Every season there’s a brand-new look, a whole new way.

When you build a building, it can take two, three years to finish. In fashion, two seasons a year must come fresh from somewhere. It’s very difficult in fashion to talk spatially. With architecture you can easily talk spatially.

LB: You always say that you construct, you don’t design. What do you mean by that?

CR: Well, again, it’s like building; you’ve got whatever materials you are using, and then you build a garment, you don’t fashion one. I am building something from raw materials that has a story and an outcome and a projection.

LB: You always do your own fabrics as well. You start from scratch and then you build your collection.

illustration

Carike de Jager

Lucilla Booyzen is the founder and director of SA Fashion Week, after having started out as a model and segueing into show production

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CR: The centre of Joburg was always so interesting.

Now I’m in Plett, of course. There’s no such thing as a space in Plett. And the whole of Joburg has these incredible spaces that are just waiting for occupancy.

I am sure Joburg has emptied out in this past year of clamping down — that’s just its nature. It’s like influx, de-flux, it goes up and down.

LB: I visited you then because I did shows for you and for the big corporates. You were one of the first designers who actually did their own show. It was a fantastic time, full of creativity. When did you open your first store?

CR: It was in the mall in Rosebank. It was very beautiful, even if I say so myself. That was in 1989, somewhere around there.

LB: I remember it well — it was the first that was like an art gallery.

CR: Lucilla, you have to tell the story about China.

How we ended up doing that show in China with

illustration

Manelisi Dabata

Clive Rundle is an iconic South African fashion designer renowned for his elegant and intricate constructions

the whole street, with all those banners. That was Shanghai, wasn’t it?

LB: That was a show that I did with the World Gold Council, which put the show together. I went there two weeks before the show to do the casting. I found these incredibly beautiful girls. And then you guys arrived and you designed the clothes for every scene. It was incredible because it was like a Chinese designer had designed this, because while you designed it with an African design soul, it fitted completely with these beautiful pieces of jewellery. We started rehearsals at this five-star hotel, and the next day was the show.

CR: We had to do the dress rehearsal for the party.

The [Chinese Communist Party] members came and sat in the front row to see if what you were going to do fitted with their memorandum, or whatever.

LB: They all had their uniforms on and then they took all my models away and gave me new models who were all short and, I don’t know, working in bars, remember?

CR: They were all family members. So, if you wanted to do your show, the models had to be their family members.

LB: I was a complete nervous wreck. That evening I had to use completely new models who knew nothing, who couldn’t even walk on a runway. But once I did the show, the Chinese government people wouldn’t turn their backs on me, they were thanking me because then they understood what we were doing. And they had these big banners in the street with all the models’ faces and your garments. And we had flags, South African flags and gold flags. It was incredible.

CR: The best part was that the people who came to the show had actually won their tickets in a draw and had no interest in fashion. They’d won their tickets and then came and sat in their seats. And they were seeing semi-naked girls for the first time, because we were completely inappropriate, of course.

LB: You’ve done incredible work with [visual and performance artist] Steven Cohen. You told me the other day about the times he’s worn one of your dresses.

CR: I don’t know how many times he’s worn it, but it’s a staple dress that, he says, has its own passport.

I think it has been to 30 different countries. We stapled 100 000 staples as the dress, but he’s worn that to shreds, it’s completely falling apart. That dress has acquired its own life.

LB: Do you think that there’s enough support for designers in South Africa?

CR: I think the landscape is changing. There is now a global interest in African fashion. That’s a different mindset to what we started out with. We didn’t have that support. So, it’s fantastic that there is now interest in the continent. What happens here has just been happening on its own for many, many years. Of course, once people start putting their eyes on it, it means the aesthetic must change. I believe that there is an interest but then, you know, you have to fit into the global market.

LB: In closing, why are designers important in a country? I’ve always felt that without design, there’s no fashion, and we should be a design-led and not a manufacturing-led industry.

CR: Clothes themselves have become like a language.

One visual tells a million stories. I mean, fashion and design are about images. It’s not about anything else.

It’s an image that tells a story.

Check Wanted Online for a video of the full conversation

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CR: We build everything. At the same time the music is being built into the show. Everything is part of the building material. You don’t just pitch up with your clothes. We’ve built the storyline clearly so that when we press the start button, we’ve set a spatial intention for that visual.

LB: I know your clothes really make the models feel beautiful. That’s missing at the moment with clothing; buying that piece that is so special that you can wear it forever. I want to take you back to the beginning, when you were in the Barbican in Joburg. What was it like to be in a space that is now a historical building?

CR: The space was, of course, spectacular, but for us it was like, okay, this is where we live, this is where we sell our clothes. It was also completely special, but its “special” came when everybody went home and it was just this weird, quiet space in the middle of town.

LB: Yeah. That’s one thing about you; you have always chosen beautiful spaces.

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Michael Oliver Love

photographer

production / stylist

Louw Kotze and Gregory Russill

Own your space in earthy neutrals for a graphic and clean approach to the new season

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FFAASSHHIIO ONN

FORM

AND

FUNK

-TION

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From left jacket, R5 699; trousers, R2 299, both Scotch & Soda; bodysuit, R4 11O, Wolford; Burberry sunglasses, R3 34O, Sunglass Hut; mules, R17 5OO, Louis Vuitton; jacket, POR; trousers, POR, both Gucci; bodysuit, R4 11O, Wolford; Prada glasses, R3 45O, Luxottica; scarf, R5 595, Longchamp; No Borders shoes, R4 2OO, AKJP Studio; knit jersey, POR; blouse, POR; skirt, POR, all Gucci; boots, R2 99O, Europa Art

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Chair credits: Giancarlo Piretti for Anonima Castelli/ designed 1967; Pine chair/ designer and year of design unknown; Alvar Aalto for Artek/ designed 1932; Gerrit Rietveld for Cassina/ designed 193Os; Vecta Group/ designed 197Os

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Bodysuit, R4 11O, Wolford 02.

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Chair credit: Verner Panton for Montana/ designed 1971

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Shirt, POR; trousers, POR; shoes, POR, all Gucci; stockings, R1 39O, Wolford 02.

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Chair credit: Verner Panton for Montana/ designed 1971

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Jacket, POR, Gucci; scarf, R5 595, Longchamp; Prada glasses, R3 45O, Luxottica

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Gavin Rajah shirt, R9 2OO; Gavin Rajah shorts, R6 9OO, both D’ORÉ; sunglasses, R11 4OO, Louis Vuitton; stockings, R1 39O, Wolford; boots, R3 99O, Europa Art 02.

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Chair credit: Åke Fribytter for Nelo Möbel/designed 197Os

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Chair credit: Verner Panton for Vitra/ designed 1959-196O

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Stockists

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Chair credit: Percival Lafer/ designed 196Os

AKJP Studio akjpstudio.com D’ORÉ dorefashion.co.za Europa Art europaart.co.za Gucci O11 442 4252 Longchamp 011 883 3617 Louis Vuitton O11 784 9854 Luxottica O21 486 6100 Scotch & Soda scotch-soda.co.za Sunglass Hut za.sunglasshut.com Wolford 011 325 6457

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PHOTOGRAPHER MICHAEL OLIVER LOVE/ HERO CREATIVE MANAGEMENT CREATIVE DIRECTION AND STYLING LOUW KOTZE & GREGORY RUSSILL/ ONE LEAGUE HAIR & MAKEUP TARRYN LEE KELLY/ DISCO CREATIVES PHOTOGRAPHER’S ASSISTANT MICHAEL GOLDSMID STYLIST’S ASSISTANT CHAD JOHN PAYNE MODELS PIVOT A/ TWENTY MODEL MANAGEMENT SIKHOKHELE T/ TWENTY MODEL MANAGEMENT THAPELO M/ TWENTY MODEL MANAGEMENT SARAH J/ TWENTY MODEL MANAGEMENT LOCATION SPACEBY, THEFOURTH GALLERY, CAPE TOWN

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From left: Jacket, R2 48O; trousers, R1 28O, both AKJP Studio; stockings, R1 39O, Wolford; boots, R4 99O, Europa Art; jacket, R2 48O; trousers, R1 28O, both AKJP Studio; stockings, R1 39O, Wolford; boots, POR, Louis Vuitton

C O L L A B O R AT I O N

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THE CITY CENTRE: A PERFECT CONFLUENCE Every day becomes something extraordinary at these exclusive City Centre apartments at Steyn City

OF LUXURY AND CONVENIENCE

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W

hat is your idea of the ultimate lifestyle? Is it sophistication, convenience, luxury or glamour — or a mix of all four? That’s precisely what you’ll find at City Centre in Steyn City.

If you aren’t prepared to compromise on any of life’s pleasures, you share the same philosophy as the City Centre.

Here, you’ll find apartment living to rival any of the best developments in the world’s greatest capitals, with stellar design, state-of-the-art amenities, and

facilities specially designed to make every day extraordinary.

For a start, all of the luxury apartments have high ceilings, extra space, superior-quality fittings, and integrated blu-line kitchens with Gaggenau appliances and a super sub-basement in which to park your luxury vehicle — and, of course, the biggest garden in South Africa, thanks to Steyn City’s signature 2 000-acre indigenous parkland, which can be accessed from all apartments.

Residents also have access to Steyn City’s amenities, which cater to all interests. This means you can enjoy the best life has to offer without leaving the development. Golf, horse riding, mountain biking, indoor swimming, restaurants, and a host of children’s activities top the list.

Additional features such as a 300m sparkling lagoon turn every day into a five-star holiday experience, while the Ultimate Helistop allows you to skip the commute and arrive wherever you want to go — from the boardroom to your weekend getaway — in style.

City Centre, where every day is extraordinary!

To book an exclusive viewing of City Centre from 11 October, call 010 597 1170 or email ccsales@steyncity.co.za

R E S E RV E D PA R K I N G F O R YO U R CARS, HORSES AND CHOPPER. Secure luxury apartment living.

At City Centre, you’ll find everything you need to make every day extraordinary. Play a round of golf on a course designed by one of the world’s greatest golfers. Take the horses out for a ride to explore the breathtaking scenery. Or if you’d rather go out for the day, enjoy a coffee in our Ultimate Helistop’s executive lounge while your pilot brings the chopper around. This is City Centre, the apex of secure, luxury apartment living.

TBWA\HUNT\LASCARIS 930885

Apartments from R2.3m up to R35m.

Visit www.steyncity.co.za to book your exclusive viewing.

Johannesburg architect Anthony Orelowitz has designed a home for his family that reinvents what it means to make a haven in the city

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WHERE TH E H EART IS

HOUSE

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photography

Elsa Young

text

Graham Wood

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“I

n Jo h a n n e s b u r g , there is no mountain,” says architect Anthony Orelowitz. “There’s no sea.” While houses in Cape Town tend to look outwards, seeking to catch a glimpse of the ocean or frame a view of Table Mountain, “here, you have to create your own habitat”.

That, at heart, was the basis of his response to Joburg’s urban character when he designed his own home in the city’s famously forested suburbs.

Orelowitz is primarily a commercial architect. His firm, Paragon, is responsible for some of the city’s most significant architectural landmarks.

But, he says, “I hadn’t done a house in nearly 15 years.” Nevertheless, working closely with architect Elliot Marsden and interior designer Julia Day, he conjured a vision of what it means to make a home in Joburg, at once both perfectly suited to the city and utterly unlike its neighbours.

The plot of land where Orelowitz was to build his home had been a tennis court in a previous life, accessed via a long driveway at the end of a panhandle, surrounded by neighbours on all sides and far from the street. It felt like an island with huge jungly trees in a sea of suburbia.

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The mosaic (by Anthony and Marley Swanepoel) on the floor of the pool was inspired by contour maps of the ocean floor.

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production

Sven Alberding

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HOUSE

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Floating stairs lead from the kitchen and dining space to an upstairs entertainment area.

The upstairs guest suite opens onto a bathroom that has an app-controlled skylight.

The kitchen and dining area is a space in which to both cook and entertain.

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Day was involved from the very earliest stages, so the ideas that drove the design have been sustained right down to the tiniest details.

She says this house is unlike any other she’s ever worked on. “Details everywhere were customised as we went along,” she says, and recalls redesigning entire bathrooms so that the tiling layout was perfectly even, lining up exactly with the doors, no trimming or unevenly sized tiles necessary.

Designing, engineering, building, and decorating were one endlessly changing, unfolding experiment, evolving even as it took shape.

To create his habitat, Orelowitz turned to the archetype of the atrium house: an internal courtyard embraced on all sides by the building, creating a peaceful sanctuary at its heart, open to the sky. He calls it a “self-contained oasis in the city”.

The house itself is essentially a series of pavilions, with vast sliding doors and screens that can be opened and closed to reconfigure a mosaic of spaces in countless ways. (They even had to design a new rail system to manage the massive glass panels that make up the sliding doors.)

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Rather than simply surround the central courtyard, however, Orelowitz “pushed” the landscape through the pavilions and out to the very edges of the site. “The ground plane washes through the house from one end to the other,” he says.

This creates “secondary courtyards” all around the house, where the pavilions open onto private, peaceful nooks under the trees, and the boundary walls in effect become the walls of the house.

Despite its long, low-slung appearance, the house also rises to an upper level in the treetops, carefully designed around branches that lean into and over the house. It’s like a “big, adult treehouse”, says Orelowitz. The effect gives a sense of the space’s being knitted together both vertically and horizontally.

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The bedrooms are at ground level, nestled under the trees, while the living and outdoor entertainment areas — even the pool, with portholes underneath looking down into the central courtyard — are on the level above. He says that when he wakes in the morning, he wants to “touch the ground” and “be in the forest”.

The clarity and apparent simplicity of the design is, inevitably, a wonder of engineering, ranging from massive, brutishly strong post-tension beams that

its origins in Brazil. These qualities bring a certain earthiness inside, enhanced by the way in which light enters the house, the way air flows over a pond and up though a skylight, and the movement and variations in temperature.

The care taken with the detailing means that the transitions between inside and out become seamless in a way that houses often claim to be but aren’t. Door and window frames are so precisely integrated into the slatted timber cladding that wraps the walls and ceilings that the thresholds are imperceptible. The lighting (also bespoke) is concealed and designed in such a way that in the evening and at night the quality of light inside and out is consistent. The effect is somewhat magical.

Despite the sleek beauty of the design, Orelowitz compares the house to Hogwarts in the Harry Potter books, referring to the secret passages and trick stairs in the fictional school. He describes it as being more a system than a set structure. “You’ve got hidden passages and concealed spaces behind spaces,” he says. The ways in which the walls and screens can be opened or closed mean that it can also be reconfigured. It is forever shifting and changing shape. “It’s quite theatrical in a way.”

Some over-the-top features, like the app-controlled automated skylight that runs the length of the front of the house,

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The main en suite bathroom can be opened onto a courtyard, which in turn can be opened up to the main courtyard, or screened off to transform the bedroom area into a private suite.

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The bedrooms are at ground level, nestled under the trees, while the living and outdoor entertainment areas — even the pool, with portholes underneath looking down into the central courtyard — are on the level above.

The clarity and apparent simplicity of the design is, inevitably, a wonder of engineering, with massive, brutishly strong post-tension beams that wrap around the house (so well hidden by cascading plants that you’d never know they were there) and a floating lounge floor that seems to defy gravity.

Day says the carefully controlled palette of interior finishes was selected for its natural and highly tactile attributes.

Orelowitz speaks of wanting “sensory feedback” when you touch surfaces, from the walls to the floors. The rough sensuality of the stone, the lushness of the plants, and the elemental presence of air and water lean away from the minimalism of European modernism towards the lush, sensual, tropical modernism that has

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Porthole windows on the underside of the swimming pool cast a liquid light over the courtyard below.

The upstairs entertainment area was designed around massive tree branches.

Architect Anthony Orelowitz and interior designer Julia Day.

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You’ve got hidden passages and concealed spaces behind spaces...

It’s quite theatrical in a way

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“The house allows for sculptural elements,” she says. The architectural shapes of Haldane Martin’s outdoor furniture, for example, carry the language of the “hard shell” of the house into another dimension. But perhaps more importantly, she thought carefully about the quality of the space that individual furniture pieces create around them, so that the furniture works in concert with the carefully choreographed architectural movement and connections. She had to consider the ways in which the furniture would “translate” from different vantage points. By the same token, she steered clear of designs that looked overly functional. The kitchen, for example, was conceived more as a social area where you could cook and entertain than a traditional space.

The interiors became an exercise in layering, articulating, and complementing the architecture. Natural textures are picked up in the fabrics, while colours are drawn from the water, the foliage, the sky, and the stone to “marry inside and out”. To maintain the sense of simplicity, subtle variations in colour, texture, and material — the same granite hammered here, but sandblasted there — keep it from appearing monotonous or sterile. She embraced the overtly handcrafted and the imperfect to bring warmth to the space.

At times Day even went so far as to embrace what she calls the anti-perfect and do something deliberately “wrong”.

The patterned tiling on the built-in outdoor sofa in the central courtyard, for example, breaks the rules, but introduces something whimsical that rings true to the spirit of the place. She quotes designer Vico Magistretti, who designed a number of her favourite furniture pieces, some included in the house: “Simplicity is the hardest thing to obtain.” It’s an effect more than a set of rules. The secret, however, remains in the detailing, in being able to sustain a clear vision from the “big idea” right through to the tiniest detail.

Of course, such painstaking attention only pays off if the idea is convincing in the first place. And if it is, you have the makings of an architectural landmark.

The idea is elevated. In this case, the idea was not so much to create a building or a house in the traditional sense as a place.

“Can you make your home your favourite space in the city?” asks Orelowitz. The open courtyard at the heart of this home is an invitation to do so. juliaday.co.za, generationdesign.co.za, paragon.co.za

IMAGES ELSA YOUNG/ BUREAUX

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add to the magical effect, transforming interiors into exteriors. “The walls are made of plants,” Orelowitz points out, referring to the vertical garden.

Day has continued this sense of surprise and discovery throughout the interior, particularly in the way cabinets and wall panelling conceal storage and even entire rooms. (Dressing rooms and a backof-house kitchen open up behind what appear to be seamless panelled walls.)

Even in plain sight, Day has worked some magic to ensure that all the openness and connectedness is actually habitable, and that the family fills the spaces with life. She says that large volumes and open flowing spaces need pods and cocooned pockets to create cosier, more intimate spaces.

She has drawn heavily on designs from Italy’s De Padova, France’s Ligne Roset, and Austria’s Wiener GTV Design, as well as local designers such as Haldane Martin. She favoured low-slung designs, often light, fairly transparent pieces that don’t interrupt lines of sight or “break” the views and the sense of a flowing, continuous space. “There’s nothing that interrupts the eye,” as she puts it.

At the same time, Day sought out designs strong enough to hold their own.

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Why savvy investors are betting on Morningside text

Joan Muller

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he pandemic-induced remoteworking trend may well have prompted Joburg residents in search of a more relaxed lifestyle to pack their bags for the coast or countryside.

But that doesn’t mean the City of Gold has lost any of its lustre as a real-estate investment destination.

In fact, like most other South African metros, Joburg has been experiencing a mini-boom in housing sales since mid2020, as a rush of first-time buyers have entered the market on the back of the lowest interest rates in nearly 50 years.

Research by Pam Golding Properties shows that more than a third (34%) of people who bought a residential property in Joburg in the 12 months to the end of August were young adults (aged 18-35).

This group typically includes a large chunk of first-time buyers.

The number of new entrants to the city’s housing market is significant, considering that until now only 6% of its existing homeowners comprised young adults. Cheaper debt funding has also encouraged older homeowners to upgrade. Marked shifts in how we live, work, and play, brought about by the onset of Covid-19, have further impacted home-buying decisions. A key theme is an uptick in demand for larger and better-equipped properties with room for a home office.

Sandra Gordon, senior research and market analyst at Pam Golding Properties, says the bigger-is-better trend seems to be reflected in the recent price rally in Joburg’s standalone, freehold properties. The latest data from property data analytics group Lightstone shows that freehold prices

have risen by 7.1% so far this year (from January to August). This brings the median price of a stand-alone Joburg home to R1.5 million. Freehold homes in security estates attracted an average of R3.2 million.

Cobus Odendaal, CEO of Lew Geffen Sotheby’s International Realty in Johannesburg and Randburg, also notes a definite swing towards freestanding properties, particularly in gated security estates. He ascribes the popularity of estate living to a general desire for more space to escape the confines of lockdown. This trend is supported by Lightstone data: two lifestyle estates — Cedar Lakes outside Fourways and Eagle Canyon in Honeydew — are among Joburg’s best-performing suburbs in terms of price growth for the year to July.

Morningside is Joburg’s top suburb in terms of the number of buyer enquiries and sales volumes since lockdown began. According to RE/ MAX, the neighbourhood saw the most online property searches countrywide in the second quarter. Fourways is the only other Joburg neighbourhood in the five most-searched-for suburbs in RE/ MAX’s quarterly survey. Cape Town’s Parklands, Plumstead, and Sunningdale complete the list. Morningside’s growing popularity is also underscored

by Lightstone data, which shows that the suburb had the most housing sales in Joburg last year, with 313 residential properties changing hands at an average price of R2.49 million. Joburg’s next most-active suburbs in terms of the number of sales were Bryanston (299), Weltevreden Park (292), Sandown (266), and Randpark Ridge (205).

Bella De Abreu, of RE/MAX One in Sandton, links Morningside’s desirability to its central location — it’s within a stone’s throw of the Sandton CBD and other major business hubs.

Another big plus is that Morningside caters to most budgets. Entry-level prices for one-bedroom apartments start at R980 000, while two- to threebedroom sectional-title units can be had for less than R2 million. At the same time, a large, six-bedroom, newly built home can set you back R55 million.

Richard Smith, Pam Golding Properties’ regional business manager for Gauteng, adds that Morningside’s upmarket security complexes, boomed streets, and strong community policing presence are big drawcards for buyers for whom safety is a priority.

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IMAGE SCOVAD/123RF

JOBURG’S PANDEMIC PROPERTY BOOST

THE GOODS

LIVE IN THE MOMENT

text

Brendon Petersen

Push the boundaries of creativity, art, and technology with these gadgets SOUNDBAR

Klipsch Cinema 800 American audio company Klipsch has unveiled a new, featurerich range of soundbars that will level up your TV-watching experience. The Klipsch Cinema 800 Sound Bar with Dolby Atmos is more compact than its Cinema 1200 sibling, measuring 48 inches, and comes with a 10-inch wireless subwoofer for 3.1 immersive sound (decodes

COFFEE

7.1.4 Dolby Atmos).

It also features 8K HDR passthrough with Dolby Vision compatibility and next-generation HDMI eARC connectivity, which means you’ll be able to get true Dolby Atmos sound and ultra-highdefinition video with a single HDMI cable.

If you’re looking for 5.1 surround sound, you’ll be happy to know that

the Klipsch Cinema 800 Sound Bar can be paired with the company’s Surround 3 wireless speakers.

Crafted using real wood, the Cinema 800 Sound Bar is designed to look and feel like the signature Klipsch Reference speakers.

Firmware updates, product registration, and EQ updates can be done via the Klipsch Connect app,

Nespresso Vertuo Next

while controlling it is as simple as speaking, thanks to the built-in universal Wi-Fi that works with Google Assistant and Amazon Alexa. This makes it easy to add the soundbar to your existing smart-home ecosystem for multiroom streaming. It’s also compatible with Google Chromecast.

R16 999, homemation. co.za

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CAMERA

Sony α7C

The Sony α7C is the embodiment of the saying “Dynamite comes in small packages.” Cramming a 24.2MP BSI full-frame sensor into a body with an APS-C form factor, while still including five-axis in-body image stabilisation, is a feat of engineering that arguably makes the α7C the most compact camera of its kind.

Despite its size, the camera delivers the phenomenal image quality, for both stills and video, that you’d expect from a full-frame camera, making it the perfect hybrid. Content creators will love the vari-angle, side-opening 3-inch LCD touchscreen and the fact that it’s compatible with Sony’s Wireless Shooting Grip.

The α7C features a 24.2MP back-illuminated full-frame Exmor R CMOS sensor paired with a BIONZ X image processor, is capable of an ISO range of 100-51 200 (expandable to 50-204 800), and boasts 15 stops of dynamic range.

It has built-in Wi-Fi and Bluetooth for wireless sharing and camera control, and is dust and moisture resistant. From R26 995 (body only), sony-mea.com

MONTBLANC

Augmented Paper Montblanc is celebrated for its luxury pens and watches.

Augmented Paper, its latest foray into fusing technology with highend luxury, certainly fits the bill.

At first glance, Augmented Paper looks like any ordinary notebook gracing the desk of a high-powered individual with a refined sense of style,

but there’s more to it than meets the eye.

Using electro-magnetic resonance, the notebook can digitise your handwritten notes or drawings when using Montblanc’s Augmented Paper and a specialised writing instrument, and then share them to the Montblanc Hub app on your mobile device.

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Capable of recognising handwriting in several languages, including English, Russian, Spanish, and Arabic, the notebook can last up to eight hours on a single charge and store up to 100 pages in its onboard storage.

Once you’ve paired the notebook to your phone, using it is as easy as writing, tapping the transfer button, and watching each page appear in the app. You’re then able to combine pages, add drawings or comments, and share in a variety of formats.

R13 800, montblanc.com

If you’re a coffee lover it’s quite likely that you have a Nespresso machine. Known for ease of use and a consistent brewing experience, Nespresso is the epitome of quality, at-home coffee brewing. The one quibble with traditional Nespresso machines, however, is that they brew espresso-based coffees and not large mugs of coffee.

The Vertuo Next machine is Nespresso’s intelligent and stylish solution to that dilemma. Able to brew a wide range of coffee types — including espresso, double espresso, gran lungo, and regular coffee — at the touch of a button, the machine automatically adapts brewing parameters to each capsule, including cup size, pressure, temperature, and brewing time.

The intelligent extraction system uses barcode technology to recognise each of the 30 Nespresso coffees from its permanent range, and adjusts the extraction parameters to brew each blend precisely how it’s meant to be enjoyed.

From R3 499, Nespresso Boutiques and buynespresso.com

MOTORING

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IMAGES SUPPLIED

he original Lamborghini Countach still has all the visual drama it had at its unveiling at the 1971 Geneva Motor Show.

The Italian supercar stunned the motoring world with its futuristic styling, and its name was well chosen: countach is an expression of astonishment in the Italian Piedmontese dialect.

The V12 mid-engined car was cramped and difficult to drive, and had almost no rear view through its letterbox-sized back windscreen.

But that beautifully angular wedge shape and scissor doors, penned by Marcello Gandini, then head designer at automotive design house Gruppo

Bertone, made it a cult classic. And now, 50 years later, Lamborghini’s poster child is making headlines again with a limited-series hybrid supercar.

With the tagline “Inspired by the past, made for the future,” the futuristic new Countach LPI 800-4 pays homage to its flamboyant predecessor. Only 112 units of the modern version will be made — and all have already been sold at around R38 million apiece.

“It imagines how the iconic Countach of the ’70s and ’80s might have evolved into an elite super sports model of this decade,” said Stephan Winkelmann, president and CEO of Automobili Lamborghini, at the new car’s debut at The Quail, A Motorsports Gathering in

Carmel, California in August.

Even for a carmaker that routinely churns out beautiful sports cars, Gandini’s design stood out from that of Lamborghini’s other models, so reviving a name as famous as the Countach required something special.

All the original design tropes are present in the new LPI 800-4. The wedge shape, sharp angles, large NACA air intakes cut into the side, and scissor doors make it instantly recognizable.

The rear longitudinal position of the V12 engine is also a nod to the original, as are the inverted wedge shape of the rear and the “hexagonita” design of the taillight cluster. The modern car adopts the pure and uncluttered design of the first

CULT CLASSIC LAMBORGHINI COUNTACH IS REBORN FOR THE MODERN AGE

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essence, if you will.

“The first Countach shaped the Lamborghini design DNA like no other car; the new Countach translates that unconventional and edgy character into the future.”

Based on the Sián (a similarly rare Lamborghini of which only 82 units are currently being built), the all-wheel-drive Countach LPI 8004 hybrid pairs a normally aspirated 6.5-litre V12 engine with a 48v e-motor and supercapacitor for total outputs of 599kW and 755Nm. Lamborghini quotes a 0-100km/h of 2.8 seconds and a 355km/h top speed, comfortably exceeding the five-second sprint and 295km/h of its progenitor.

A carbon-fibre body and electronically powered air vents bring the Countach into the modern age, as does its active suspension.

The 20-inch front and 21-inch rear wheels are styled with the “telephone” theme of the ’80s, but they’re fitted with high-performance Pirelli P Zero tyres while stopping power comes from carbon-ceramic brake discs.

A photochromatic roof changes from solid to transparent at the push of a button and the digitised cabin is worlds away from the analogue cockpit of its forebear,

text

Denis Droppa

Front and rear view of the Countash LP I 800-4

Countach LP 400 production version, minus the oversized rear wing and busy aerodynamics of later iterations.

“The first Countach has been present in our Centro Stile [design centre] as a model for some years now,” says Lamborghini design head Mitja Borkert.

“Whenever I look at it, it gives me goose bumps, and it serves as the perfect reminder for me and the entire design team to design every future Lamborghini in a visionary and futuristic way. This is an unnegotiable part of our DNA, the

although the square motif of the seat stitching references the original ’70s style.

The touchscreen infotainment system includes a unique button entitled Stile (design) which, when pressed, explains the Countach design philosophy to its privileged audience.

The original Countach was produced until 1990 with 1 983 units sold, and was finally replaced by the Diablo. Today, a vintage Countach sells for between R7 million and R19 million, depending on condition.

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Inspired by the past, made for the future, this supercar has all the right moves

NAVIGATOR

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Dispatches on all things cool, covetable, and conversation-wor thy

food The Peeping Tom’s tongue is f irmly in its cheek

art

gifted

columns

Billie Zangewa invites us into the heart of the home

Jana Hamman, multidisciplinary designer and creative director

Michele Magwood on books and Sarah B u i t e n d a ch o n t r ave l

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The Peeping Tom, Parkwood

text

Steve Steinfeld

IMAGES SUPPLIED

The Peeping To m pairs flavourful food with a nudge and a wink

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his new Parkwood eatery is bringing bistro-style fare and a whole lot of camp conviviality to the trendy Park Corner on Bolton Road. After captivating us with Morning Glory, the most Instagrammable coffee shop in town, architects-turned-restaurateurs Timothy Meyer and Chad du Toit have embarked on their second project, The Peeping Tom. The new space merges retrokitsch with the raw, industrial feel of the building to create a fun, flirty, and equally photo-ready setting. It

features the same touch points of pink archways and neon signage with which Morning Glory has become synonymous, but here the pink contrasts with the deep yellow that swathes the top half of the doublevolume space. Since the cracks in the industrial concrete floor below are filled with gold resin, this gives the illusion that the gold almost dripped off the ceiling.

Art too is a focal point of the eatery and something about which the restaurateurs feel passionately. With the help of renowned art publisher

IT’S GOLDEN Stellenbosch fintech startup re-defines gold ownership

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and dealer David Krut, they hope to showcase an ever-changing array of works by local artists on the walls.

Looking to the food, there’s a definite retro feel to the proclaimed “easy eating” fare. The kitchen plays with a twist on bistro-style cooking in the “fancy-not-fancy” line that the restaurant flaunts so frivolously.

The duo’s tongue-in-cheek humour is evident in the naming of the menu items. The light bites and starters include the likes of “prawns gone wild”, a prawn cocktail served with a classic Marie Rose dressing, avocado, fennel slaw, and a shot of whisky; the “gotta love a tart” of baked brie in phyllo; and the “cheeky leeks” vichyssoise.

It’s a great selection of dishes suitable as either starters or for sharing among the table as small plates.

If you’re looking for something heartier, you’re sure to be impressed by the bold, rich moules marinières (order some extra skinny fries to dip into the sauce), the cauli heads – a fantastic vegetarian dish of flash-fried cauliflower served with a beetroot hummus, zhoug, and vegan cream cheese — or the decadently delicious truffle-loaded mac and cheese (need I say more?).

It’s simple cooking that delivers big on flavour and comfort, the dishes elevated through playful plating and cheeky twists on expectations. This is a place to let your hair down, enjoy a cocktail or two, dig into a great meal, and, really, just have fun.

The Peeping Tom 146 Jan Smuts Avenue, Parkwood 064 544 6556

here’s nothing more old school than stashing a few gold coins in the family safe, under the mattress, or in the cut-out pages of a non-descript book.

The precious metal, after all, has a 6 000-year track record as a safe store of value, and to this day remains the only legal tender, worldwide, that carries no counterparty risk. Yet gold’s critics are legion, and their criticism is valid: owning a metal coin gives an investor no access to the interest or gain that would come through having a bank deposit or shares on the stock market. And most gold languishes in safety deposit boxes, of no use in day-to-day transactions.

It’s the same issue with which owners of the digital version of gold — bitcoin — are grappling. But now, a Stellenbosch-based fintech startup has come up with a solution to this for gold owners. Enter Troygold.

The company digitises physical gold and Krugerrands via its Fractional Ownership Technology (FOT).

Using an app, a customer can open a Troygold account, which offers a gold savings wallet that digitises the customer’s gold — bought or uploaded onto the platform — as well as a linked Mastercard debit card that enables spending of the gold’s ZAR value at any Mastercard-accepting stores. The gold savings wallet is linked to specific, numbered gold Krugerrands and bars in a vault.

Each owner receives an ownership certificate that indicates which bar or coin (with indicated serial number) they own, along with details as to where it is stored. Troygold currently has storage facilities in Singapore and

Johannesburg, where the physical bullion bars or coins of gold are securely kept — fully insured — in the world’s safest vaults.

The company was born of a desire to help owners of physical gold, and is a collaboration with industry legends the South African Gold Coin Exchange (SAGCE) and The Scoin Shop. Its distribution agreement allows Troygold’s solution to be scaled up, enabling a broader market to save and transact in fractions of gold.

Rael Demby, CEO of SAGCE, is building on the legacy of the business by embracing change and adopting new technology, cryptocurrency payments, state-of-the-art packaging and creative collaborations with other industry leaders. SAGCE respects change and is moving forward with Troygold at its side.

Troygold, SAGCE, and The Scoin Shop are all looking to a future where those who want to enjoy the financial security of gold, while transacting in a digital financial world, can do so.

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MORE THAN JUST LOOKS

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N NA AV V II G GA A TT O OR R

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This woman's work

Ntombenhle Shezi

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ELUSIVE ARTIST BILLIE ZANGEWA INVITES US TO CONTEMPLATE

artwork / 1. The Rebirth of the Black Venus, 2010

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or many of us, the past year has proven to be an unexpected impetus for introspection and contemplation.

For textile artist Billie Zangewa, a homebody, lockdown has been a moment of poignant reflection on her own life, out of which has come the narratives of her silk tapestries. Her most recent work is a glimpse into how she navigates her interior world. Here, the viewer finds kinship in shared vulnerabilities, especially during the pandemic. Unapologetically centred in the domestic space, her work amplifies the theme of women and their interiority.

2. Self-Care Sunday, 2020

3. Mood Indigo, 2016

4. An Angel At My Bedside, 2020

The household has often been depicted as a space occupied by women’s “timid” efforts in a world that has struggled historically to embrace them fully. But Zangewa describes her home as her safe space, in which she found her grounding eight years ago when her son was born. Her work honours the home, and women’s place within it, as a space of creativity and self-actualisation.

Connecting with me via Google Meets from her home in Johannesburg, she is candid about the struggles she has faced in acclimatising to new ways of existing as a family within the home space during lockdown — something with which

many parents will find resonance.

For Zangewa, the kitchen conjures up feelings of warmth and intimacy.

“I think just the connecting ceremony of a family sitting down together to eat food is a very spiritual experience.” Her multi-purpose, light-filled kitchen is her preferred place of work. Zangewa traces the fluidity with which she experiences her home — as a place to live, and to create and enjoy work — to a childhood home in Zomba, Malawi.

“Working in the kitchen for me is a kind of evocation of my childhood, because I always worked at home, in the domestic space. So even if it was in the

TV room, while the rest of my family were watching TV or playing games, it was always in the comfort of this space.”

Some of her pieces also speak to the many ways we have all had to think about keeping a space for ourselves and each other without the support of our extended communities. “There are so many of us around the world dealing with the same challenges: losing someone close, and mourning during lockdown when you can’t bid the person farewell. These are things that many other people are experiencing too.”

At the beginning of her career, Zangewa dedicated herself to a medium

THE NEW NESPRESSO V E RT U O C O F F E E SYST E M

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OUR OWN INTERIORITY that would subvert ideas of what was perceived as “serious” art, making handbags depicting cityscapes. Historically, terminologies like “high” and “low” art created a negative power chasm where weaving, sewing, and textile work were undervalued, categorised as craft, and dismissed as women’s work. One of the first winners of the Absa L’Atelier Gerard Sekoto Award (2004), Zangewa set out to explore her identity and challenge this status quo.

Looking at her pieces, one notices the sharp and rugged framing, contrasting with the delicacy of the silk. “What I’m trying to say is, ‘Let’s love that part of ourselves [that we find shameful] just as much as we love the part of ourselves that the world accepts.’ To just come out into the world and say, ‘Yes, I’m a wounded person. But I have so much hope. And I have love.’ That is important.”

exhibition / Billie Zangewa, A Thread for a Web Begun, curated by Dexter Wimberly, is showing at the Museum of the African Diaspora, San Francisco Date: 20 October 2021 to 27 February 2022 The show is a survey of selected works from her most recent Wings of Change (2020) series and her earlier Rebirth of the Black Venus (2010) series

A C U P F O R E V E RY TAS T E A N D MOME N T The Vertuo Next is Nespresso’s most versatile machine yet, designed to make a full range of long and short cups of coffee - from 40ml Espresso to the new 535ml Carafe Pour-Over Style – at the touch of a button.

Through barcode recognition and Centrifusion™ extraction technology, the system adjusts brewing parameters such as temperature, water quantity, and rotation speed for an exquisite cup every time, just like a personal barista. Vertuo Next is made from 50% recycled plastics, with 100% of its packaging from recycled sources and 99.5% recyclable.

The Vertuo Next system is available nationwide now and at za.buynespresso.com.

DRINKS

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Wade Bales

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The syrah from this acclaimed Franschhoek estate contains a natural fruitiness, along with a full-bodied character and velvety texture. Freshly cracked black pepper and subtle, wellintegrated notes of wood are also evident on the palate.

Pair alongside rich, flavourful stews, grilled veggies or a juicy steak.

JACK BLACK CAPE PALE ALE

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ounded in 1753, Hampden Estate has been distilling rum for almost three centuries.

Renowned throughout the world for its intensely flavourful, pure single rums, this particular Distillery Edition is a tribute to the old mansion on the Jamaican estate. A blend of two rums from different vintages, it features aromas of roasted pineapple, rum cake, peppermint, and a hint of smoke.

The palate is warm and spicy, showing notes of chocolate and liquorice, before leading to a finish of cinnamon and tobacco leaves.

Available at spiritssouthafrica.co.za

RAISE A GLASS TO SUMMER

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nown as the single malt with a Viking soul, Highland Park single malt Scotch whiskies hail from the remote Orkney islands, off the extreme north coast of Scotland. The islands were once ruled by a succession of Viking earls, and the founder of Highland Park was one of their direct descendants. Today, Highland Park is the only single malt 02. produced in Scotland that’s still made in the truly traditional way, using hand-cut peat, hand-turned maltings, and sherry-seasoned oak casks.

The best of this season’s harvest

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Year-Old Viking Pride This whisky has a unique flavour profile bursting with overripe cherries, bitter dark chocolate, sweet marzipan, and aromatic peat smoke.

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MON DÉSIR CHARDONNAY 2018

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Year-Old Viking Honour This single malt boasts warm, wintery spices — perfectly balancing smoky sweetness and heather honey with spice, orange, and peat flavours.

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Eikendal winery has just released its second-ever vintage of Mon Désir Chardonnay 2018. Only produced in exceptional years, this particular vintage was crafted from grapes from the cool-climate Elgin Valley. Once vinified, the wine was matured for 14 months in French-oak barrels, followed by more ageing, this time in bottle, for just under two years. The end result: finely balanced aromas of citrus and orange blossom give way to an exceptional level of purity on the palate, coupled with a hint of flint and the promise of its only getting better with age. The limited-release Eikendal Mon Désir Chardonnay 2018 is now available at a recommended retail price of R320 per bottle.

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lean, well rounded, and generously dry hopped, Jack Black’s new Cape Pale Ale is destined to become a classic. Crafted at its now-famous Cape brewery, this is a lager that’s refreshing, flavourful, and distinct. A must-have beer for your cooler box this season.

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Year-Old Viking Scars Expect a fistful of fallen oranges, dollops of vanilla cream, and smoky heather peat on the palate.

Available at bottle stores nationwide and cutlerdrinks.co.za.

Recommended retail prices: 18-Year-Old Viking Pride R 1 799.99 12-Year-Old Viking Honour R 549.99 10-Year-Old Viking Scars R 449.99

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ade Bales Wine Co.’s new prosecco-style bubbly, produced in the prestigious Constantia Valley, is light salmon in colour and has a persistent, fine mousse. The luscious strawberry and red-cherry flavours lead to a crisp, dry finish.

IMAGES SUPPLIED

LA MOTTE SYRAH 2017

Wade Bales is a well-known wine négociant and merchant.

HAM P DE N F G R E AT HOUSE 2020?

www.LOUISXIII-COGNAC.com

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Michele Magwood is a contributing books editor at the Sunday Times

READ ALERT.

The quest for a place that feels like home

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n a recent interview about her autobiography Poli Poli, activist and poet Barbara Masekela observed that African children are often raised by people other than their parents, and that generations have grown up feeling abandoned and lonely. This is especially true of those whose parents were involved in the liberation struggle.

The work of Mandla Langa is streaked with the themes of exile and abandonment. Langa is a writer who has slowly and quietly grown in stature, and he can now take his place alongside the South African literary greats. Drawing on his own experiences in uMkhonto we Sizwe (MK) military camps, he presents, in books such as The Texture of Shadows, an intimate knowledge of the foot soldiers of the revolution and the pashas who moved them around, often blindly, on the chessboard.

In his latest book, The Lost Language

of the Soul (Picador Africa), Langa takes the idea of abandonment, marries it with betrayal, penance, idealism, and disillusion, and then fashions it all into a quest novel, a picaresque political thriller set in the late ’80s that tears from Zambia through Botswana and into South Africa.

Joseph Mabaso idolises his father Sobhuza, a South African freedom fighter who lives with Joseph’s mother Chanda and siblings in Lusaka. He is used to his father being away on important business, but at 14 he has begun to resent these frequent absences: “He wishes Ma was just a simple Zambian woman who had no connection with a South African man. These men [...] come into these places propelled by something huge and ravenous. No doubt they love their children but it is a love that cannot be free of the rage from the past it has fled.”

When his mother vanishes one night, Joseph knows something has gone

Mandla Langa weaves a tale of loss and exile in this picaresque political thriller

terribly wrong and sets out on her trail, ignoring the danger he faces.

Langa traces his journey on a canvas that heaves with life and colour.

“Walking now on an unpaved road, a truck laden with mupapa logs trundles past, leaving behind a spiral of smoke and dust... there are battered cars on either side of the road, skinny boys sitting next to piles of retreaded tyres for sale or exchange.”

There’s the quartermaster store where shelves “sag under the weight of blankets, uniforms in plastic wrapping, gumboots, and cans of powdered milk and tubs of tomato paste are stacked in rows that go up to the ceiling”. Other shelves are crammed with bound copies of Sechaba and The African Communist.

Characters leap off the page: a snaggle-toothed man called John the Baptist helps fighters cross the Zambezi in his dinghy and warns of Nyaminyami, the river god who stains the water red if your heart is not pure. We meet Comrade Chuckles, a former beauty queen, and Comrade Dictionary, who got his name in prison because he was good at Scrabble. There are pangolin poachers and criminal kawalalas and a broken-bodied girl called Leila who drives a horse cart.

As colourful as it is, we’re not allowed to forget what danger Joseph is in — Langa keeps pulling us up short with eruptions of violence and the loss of people close to him. As in his other books, the author scrapes away at the burnished myths of The Movement to reveal an uglier history of corruption and malfeasance, such as the smuggling of medical supplies and rhino horn by operatives, and a shocking deceit within the ranks that sees a woman killed for being an enemy agent when in fact this is a lie.

This is a pained reference to Langa’s own life: his brother Ben, a prominent KwaZulu-Natal activist, was murdered in Pietermaritzburg in 1984 by MK operatives after he had been accused of being an informer. At the Truth and Reconciliation Commission the ANC admitted to having been “disinformed” into murdering him by a double agent.

As a character in this book comments, “Treachery is one of the main ingredients of any liberation movement.”

The Lost Language of the Soul could have used a sharper paring knife — more is not always more in literature — but from the outset we are rooting for our lonely young hero as he searches not only for his mother but also for a metaphorical safe house where he can lay his head and his heart.

IMAGES SUPPLIED

Michele Magwood

GIFTED

Q+A.

Jana Hamman The multidisciplinary designer and creative director is fearless in the face of pink

03. What tech gadget couldn’t you live without?

My Fitbit — it tracks almost anything and is a constant, gentle reminder to sleep well, exercise, and meditate.

04. If you had to choose, what is the single-most sentimental object to you?

I have a big silver bracelet that my grandmother gave my mother, and inside she engraved her name, my mom’s name, and my name.

My mom gave it to me and then asked for it back a week later, so it also seems to be her most sentimental item!

05. What is your drink of choice? A Negroni.

06. When you eat out, where do you go? Tortellino D’Oro is a favourite for really great Italian food.

07. What single item in your wardrobe signifies your individual sense of style? It’s probably a long, black, batwing Henrik Vibskov dress. It’s a statement piece, but at the same time low-key, comfortable,

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and easy wearing. I appreciate craftsmanship, non-mainstream designers and fashion, and form that follows function.

08. What is the last object that you bought that you instantly fell in love with?

Another jersey for my cat.

I can’t help it — he doesn’t have a lot of hair and it was a ridiculous pink puffer jacket (he hates it).

09. A watch brand that you love? I do love Rolex, but sadly don’t own one.

10. The last place you travelled to that captured your heart? Mexico is one of the most special places I’ve ever visited. It’s extremely cool and highly sophisticated.

11. What books are on your bedside table?

This has been the year of selfhelp reading for me — Moody by Amy Thomson, 12 Rules for Life

by Jordan B Peterson, Breath by James Nestor, and Clean 7 by Alejandro Junger. Next up is The Body Keeps the Score by Bessel van der Kolk.

12. What is the last meal that really blew you away? I ate the most delicately balanced, mouth-watering pasta dish, made by the biggest, loudest, roughest Belgian fisherman in Henties Bay in Namibia (who also happened to be a Michelin star chef).

13. Which musician really appeals to you at the moment? I’ve always been into R&B, and lately I’ve been enjoying the sort of new-wave R&B/soul/hip hop/neo soul of local artists such as Muzi, Una Rams, and Elaine.

14. What’s next on your list of must-have items?

A scrambler or dual on-road/ off-road motorbike so I can braaaaap into my old age.

15. What is the first thing you add to your grocery cart?

Chuckles…

16. The best gift you’ve been given recently? I got a massive bunch of flowers “from my cats” — flowers in your home always brighten up the day.

17. A gift that you’ve

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recently bought for someone? I bought my business partner a pink MoccaMaster coffee machine — what could be better for a coffee addict?

18. What place inspires and rejuvenates you?

Being in the bush in Botswana.

19. An event that’s recently caught your attention? This is a shameless plug, but I am a creative board member of Jägermeister’s Night Embassy campaign. The residencies of four chosen applicants will go live at the end of the year.

20. What was the last item that you added to your wardrobe? A silver signet ring by local designer Steffany Roup.

21. Your favourite city in the world? Why? This is too difficult — Mexico City?

Lisbon? Tokyo? New York?

I’m always happy to go anywhere new, and Accra is high on the list for next visits.

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1. Elaine 2. Afrovision, an album by Muzi 3. Fitbit 4. Salt & Stone Natural Deodorant 5. Breath by James Nestor 6. Guanajuato in Mexico 7. Negroni 8. Chuckles

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IMAGES RICHIE0703/123RF; MAURESE/123RF AND SUPPLIED

01. The one indulgence you would never forgo?

I’d love to be more original but, if I’m being honest, it’s coffee. More for the ritual and buying a few more minutes before work starts.

02. What are your essential lotions and potions? A basic essential is SBR Repair Cream — a miracle for sensitive, difficult skin. Another favourite is Salt & Stone Natural Deodorant, as well as anything by new local luxury skincare brand ÚMÛ ÕRÅ.

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Sarah Buitendach

The number of Covid-19 tests used on Olympians at the 2020 Tokyo Games, of which just 151 were positive (0.02%).

The height in storeys and metres of the Alto234 bar, on the top floor of The Leonardo in Joburg.

A NUMBERS GAME text

Declan Gibbon

The amount by which Johann Rupert’s wealth has increased in the past year. The founder of Rand Merchant Bank and chair of the luxury-goods company Richemont and SAbased Remgro is now R21.2 million richer than his nearest South African competitor, Nicky Oppenheimer.

The percentage by which foreign arrivals dropped in the first year of the pandemic, according to the 2020 Tourism Report by Statistics South Africa.

The number of members of the Restaurant Association of South Africa (which represents over 11 000 restaurants) that it estimates have been forced to close due to the pandemic.

beach house offered the perfect assemblage of eclectic bits and bobs.

I wanted every single piece of art and furniture in every scene.

My latest cinematic decorative crush is Only Murders in the Building.

The whodunnit stars the always-cool Selena Gomez and ubermenschen Steve Martin and Martin Short. The other lead character in the series is a fictional Manhattan building called the Arconia. Woven between opening credits that pay homage to The New Yorker magazine, whipsmart dialogue, and a filmic style that dips into magic realism, it’s the various apartments in the complex that light up the show.

Martin’s apartment is minimally sophisticated, while Short’s is a jewel box of rich fabrics and the detritus of a Broadway producer’s career.

Gomez’s apartment is a shell under construction, but it’s still enviable.

Sometimes you glimpse other residences in the block too and they’re fascinating.

The show was filmed in an Upper West Side building called the Belnord. In the real world its apartments are just as glorious.

I’d move in immediately, but there’s just the little sticking point of their selling prices starting at $4 million.

So what if they’re marginally out of my budget? They still look very at home filed under “dream house”.

The number after which Google is named — the googol, which is a 1 followed by 100 zeroes.

183 and 251

The price in rand fetched at a Strauss & Co auction in September by a bottle of Grand Constance, from Groot Constantia — one of the remaining 12 bottles destined for Napoleon while he was in exile on Saint Helena. It’s double the price fetched in a sale in May this year.

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The number of world records Sotheby’s African art auctions have broken since their inception in 2017.

967 300

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The range of circled numbers on the iconic labels of French luxury fashion house Maison Margiela, representing the capsule from which the item comes. It has never stated what each number means.

However, fashion writers have deciphered the code — these are three examples: 3: Fragrances 10: Men’s mainline collection 22: Dedicated footwear collection.

design demarcate images of homes and interiors they’re swooning over.

On both Instagram and Pinterest, I sit and scroll through the images the tag throws up, for hours. It’s easy to fall down a rabbit hole of beauty.

The big prize in this online amble is coming across a new image of, say, a bath or floor tile that is so mesmerising I immediately add it to my own collection of décor references. I’m not in the market for a flat refurb or major redecoration, but that doesn’t stop me from filing these gems in a folder labelled “dream house”. It is currently a cloud-based dossier so thick with photographs of low-slung sofas,

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have a porn problem. The stuff that turns me on is varied in style; sometimes a little wild, never too serious — and plants are non-negotiable.

Now, before you pick up the phone and put through an emergency call to the kink-shaming police, or plunder the darknet in interest (“Plants …”, you ponder), slow your roll.

What I’m referring to is #houseporn, not to be confused with just googling “house porn” — that’s a whole other dirty thing. For those not living parallel lives in the land of social media, that hashtag is how many devotees of architecture and

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Sarah Buitendach is contributing editor to the Financial Mail.

lobster-orange lounge accents, and Shaker kitchen cupboards that I could build a city off the ideas, never mind a home.

Movies and TV series are two more of my aesthetic wellsprings.

The green velvet curtains in Cameron Diaz’s bedroom in The Holiday, the antiques and carpets in Crazy Rich Asians — even the perfect blue walls of Carrie Bradshaw’s apartment in the original Sex and the City series — these are all mentally banked for when I’ve made my billions.

Luckily, lockdown couch-lying has provided a whole new array of design inspiration. Take the lush Hawaiian décor vibes of HBO’s The White Lotus. Amid class and race tensions and a death, you’ll spot hotel rooms bursting with verdant palm-frond fabrics, and every one of the swimming pools viewers glimpse is heavenly. It all made me want to go on holiday immediately.

Or, at least, turn my own space into a tropical paradise — sans entitled Americans, obviously.

The recent Halston miniseries on Netflix was basically the zenith of exceptional taste. Fabulous ’70s couture peppered the biopic about famed American designer Roy Halston, but it was the apartment and office interiors that stole the show. An ’80s wall-to-wall blood-red lounge dripped sex, and his Montauk

The number of minutes that people are watching TV and/ or streaming each day. This is an increase of 16% (or 47 minutes) on pre-Covid-19 numbers.

The respective rankings of the University of Cape Town, and Stellenbosch University and the University of the Witwatersrand concurrently, as determined by the World University Rankings, which assesses 1 662 universities from 99 countries, analysing 108 million citations from 14.4 million research papers.

B OSCHENDAL N ICOLAS A luscious blend of Shiraz, Cabernet Sauvignon, Malbec, Merlot and Petit Verdot.

BLENDED DISTINCTION.