in the city, which is palpable. We feel very lucky to be part of this new creative wave,” says Garreth van Niekerk, co-owner of Always Welcome, a furniture and homeware store founded in Johannesburg in 2020 that champions local design. “We’ve been desperate to create a dialogue between the designers in the two cities, and have been overwhelmed by the interest in our offering from Cape Town’s design community,” says van Niekerk, who had been searching for the right time-honoured space that would complement the store’s contemporary pieces like handwoven pendant lights by Mash T Studio and curved steel chairs by Dokter and Misses. ast year, he opened Always Welcome inside a heritage L building – also the home of other creative businesses like local surf brand Mami Wata, which makes graphic T-shirts, shorts and bold surfboards – just off Cape Town’s bustling Bree Street. An ideal location, considering it’s one of the city’s artiest strips, home to a slew of creative businesses – shops, restaurants and galleries, such as an outpost of the Johannesburg-based Gallery Momo, one of the few Blackowned galleries in the country. A few blocks away is Pezula Interiors, a homegrown brand that stocks local ceramics, woven furniture and hard-to-find Assouline books, which recently reopened in a lofty new space across the street. Nearby is Merchants on Long, a fashion store founded by Hanneli Rupert, which has long highlighted now-famous designers such as Thebe Magugu and Sindiso Khumalo. Set inside a soaring old building, the space recently underwent an overhaul and offers a fresh selection of whimsical items by Viviers Studio and MaXhosa knitwear. The Bree Street area is never short on activity, but it reaches a climax on the first Thursday of the month, when shops and galleries stay open longer and patrons spill out onto the sidewalks until late. For a place that sometimes gets a hard rap about crime, nights like these There’s an incredible energy brewing in the city, which is palpable. We feel very lucky to be part of this new creative wave – Garreth van Niekerk, Always Welcome prove that there’s so much more to the city than scary encounters. It’s also a wonderful window into Cape Town’s creative crowd. This crowd has been blossoming for some time now. As the destination of international art establishments like the Zeitz MOCAA, as well as many independent galleries like Stevenson, Goodman Gallery and Southern Guild, Cape Town entices artists, curators, galleries and buyers. “It’s an important meeting ground for artists from all over the African continent,” says Trevyn McGowan, co-founder of Southern Guild, a gallery located near the Zeitz MOCAA at the waterfront and represents designers like Porky Hefer and ceramicist Andile Dyalvane. “This cross-pollination makes for a buoyant exchange among visiting artists, artists who live here, curators, collectors, galleries and institutions.” Over the past few months, McGowan has seen an uptick in international interest and visitors, which she attributes to a combination of things: the Gucci fundraising dinner at the Zeitz MOCAA that took place last year: the festive season (which always draws a crowd) as well as the Investec Cape Town Art Fair, a major event on the industry calendar. “It felt like it attracted more serious foreign collectors than ever before,” she adds. With such a robust art scene and so many art-savvy entrepreneurs and collectors, Elana Brundyn, an art entrepreneur and former CEO of the Norval Foundation, saw a space in the market to launch Art House Collection, a portfolio of unique luxury-home rentals that appeal to art-minded travellers. The homes range from a property on the edge of Table Mountain National Park, which displays paintings by Nelson Makamo, to a farmhouse in Franschhoek owned by two CENTURION-MAGAZINE.COM 71
