Astroturf and heavy metals

WORDS Nechama Brodie

Five years after opening at 44 Stanley, Dokter and Misses closed shop for three months earlier this year and reopened with a refurbished store space and intriguing new stock. VISI chats to Katy Taplin about the revamp and Dokter and Misses’s plans, in the article below. Or meet Katy and Adriaan Hugo in person in this Mail&Guardian video.

VISI: Your new gates are amazing.

Katy: I’m scared people will want us to start making gates. Adriaan Hugo, my business partner and husband, is scared people will want us to make gates.

VISI: Okay, we won’t talk about the gates. (Reader’s note: Seriously, of course we have to mention the gates – they’re fantastic!) Aside from the gates, tell us about the changes you’ve made to your space.

Katy: 44 Stanley is really doing a lot. We were finally able to take this whole outdoor space as our own, which also gave us space to show more of Joe Paine’s work. He’s always been very popular, but we needed space and plants to show off his outdoor stuff.

VISI: The yellow Joe Paine trellises hanging over the window are gorgeous. They look almost like Pickup Stix. They’d make awesome burglar bars.

Katy: I think Joe’s scared people will want him to make them burglar bars. The welding might be a security issue.

VISI: What else has Joe got that’s new?

Katy: There’s a new range of ceramic pots called Mesopotamia – one tiered like a ziggurat and another split into three on a single level, like a drawing of chemical bonds. We’ve also changed things with the Kreep Planter – the steel one is now made to order, and Joe has made a new version using plastic pots instead of steel ones, which brings the price down significantly. People always ask me if the pots come included in the price – that’s basically what you’re paying for!

VISI: What have you done with the shop’s interior?

Katy: We’ve cleaned up the space, and taken out all the shoes and T-shirts. People used to come in and ask: “What do you sell?”

We have a new light design – the Conduit Light – on the roof. The light is connected by tubes, almost like an electrical diagram. The lights twist up and down, and you can use them on the wall.

We’ve used the space almost as a testing area for our own renovations at home and products have emerged out of that – like the overhead storage we’ve installed. There are also toilet-roll holders and towel rails that came out of us renovating our bathroom. We were so busy with other projects last year that we became really bad with promotion. We love making stuff, and then we don’t tell anyone about it.

VISI: What other newish – products are in the store?

Katy: We’ve just launched our first range of toy cars – they come completely disassembled. You have to make them yourself with an Allen key. There’s a new standing light, the Sabre Light (as the name would suggest, it’s worthy of Luke Skywalker), and the Lotus Mirror (a progression of the existing mirror range, with a six-sided vertical mirror framed by a folded-in metal oval).

We’ll have pendant lighting in the store soon too. We’re also kind of going mad with colour – we’ve introduced mint, turquoise and grass green. There’s more stuff coming. I want to start doing a newsletter. The workshop is quite interesting, and I want to show more of that.

VISI: Where can we sign up?

Katy: info@dokterandmisses.com 

Dokter and Misses, 44 Stanley Avenue, Braamfontein Werf, 011 025 2469

CO-OP, 68 Juta Street, Braamfontein, 011 023 0336

www.dokterandmisses.com