CT welcomes Design Team

WORDS Maciek Dubla

Design Team have come to Cape Town. Maciek Dubla chats to one half of the textile duo, Lise Butler, to find out what brings them to the Mother City and why so many have fallen in love with their hand-printed fabrics.  

In 2002, Amanda Haupt and Lise Butler, fresh out of Tshwane University of Technology registered DT Designs, a textile design business with a focus on designing and printing South African-inspired fabrics. A decade later and after resounding success in Pretoria, Design Team have now opened a showroom in the heart of Cape Town’s Fringe District. 

Another fabric house you say? Think again. Catching Lise just before Amanda and her hop on a plane for Europe to soak up a bit of inspiration for their winter collections, she explains the secret to the success Design Team continue to enjoy: “Each design we create has a story behind it, something that we have extracted from daily life because we believe you cannot create designs with integrity, without experience or knowledge of what you’re trying to convey.”

That human element of the personal story not only makes the fabrics good to look at it, but it differentiates Design Team from numerous generic fabric houses out there. Lise shares the example of their protea design from their Homegrown Collection to illustrate her point. Here, something so familiar to many South Africans and a symbol of the country, has been translated into a beautiful and simple print that resonates with anyone who lays their eyes on it, local or international. 

Besides the stories, each piece of fabric is printed using freehand silkscreen printing. Using this time-old method of fabric printing, Amanda and Lise have created numerous jobs by bringing in unskilled workers and training them up to produce these incredible textiles. Just in the last year, the Design Team printers have physically produced over 80 000m of fabric for clothing alone – that would be like running the Two Ocean’s half marathon nearly four times. 

So what brings Design Team to Cape Town? A creative spirit that Lise feels differs from that of Pretoria.  “While in Gauteng we are constantly focusing on business growth, dealing with enquiries and obsessing about products. When Amanda and I come to Cape Town once or twice a month, we feel we can get more in touch with the creative aspect, take a step back and engage with the community that we’re in.” 

Further, with Cape Town as World Design Capital 2014, they feel that opening a showroom in Cape Town at this time just felt right because they consider Design Team an intrinsically African textile brand. 

The fabric duo has a lot planned for Design Team this year. Fabric lovers can expect the launch of new and bigger ranges in March as well as the streamlining of their children’s collection, Silly Billy. Those in Kwazulu-Natal better start planning all their fabric needs (and wants) because next month will see the opening of Design Team’s Durban showroom. 

Before she heads off for their whirlwind European trip starting at Maison et Objet in Paris, I ask Lise whether she has a favourite pattern. She responds that with new designs continually created for a range of different products from scatter cushions to clothing and furniture, each design is a favourite for a month or two and then it’s onto the next. There’s simply never enough time to love just one. 

We think Design Teams fans will agree. 

Design Team, 59 Harrington Street, Zonnebloem, Cape Town, 021 462 7707, www.designteamfabrics.co.za