Designer Tiaan Nagel worked with interior-architectural design studio Tonic Design on the interiors of his eponymous flagship boutique, which recently opened in Hyde Park Corner, Johannesburg. 

“Philippe [van der Merwe] and Greg [Gamble] strike the perfect balance between sophistication and ease,” explains Tiaan. “For me personally, as someone who battles to compromise, they are the best to work with – they push the boundaries without being faddish, improving the space and how the product will be seen and experienced.”

Tiaan showed Philippe references, many of which featured the brown tones of late ’70s interiors, including Yves Saint Laurent’s iconic Paris apartment on rue de Babylone designed by Jacques Grange: dark browns with hints of honey, sulphur and amber.

“Philippe’s eye for colour and shape is so finely tuned,” Tiaan continues. “I didn’t want anything black or white; it’s too cold. The whole project was about creating warmth and mood. In order for us to stand out from the crowd, it couldn’t feel like a traditional store. So I asked Tonic to create a shell where I can curate all the things I love, like an apartment instead of a store, filled with art, fine craft, beautiful design, and more.”

The salon-apartment feel is reinforced with the plush velvet sofa, designed by Tonic, paired with a riempie ball-and-claw chair; oversized curtains made from raw Belgian linen, which drape on wide natural oak floor boards; coffee table books and vases on top of a lacquered table with multiple legs; a contemporary mirror that could be in a boudoir; LED lights below polished marble shelves; brushed stainless steel, a counterpoint to a dark antique armoire.

“I knew I needed modern pieces, but also ones with character, so I turned to fine-art and antiques specialist Riaan Bolt to help me find pieces that spoke to that feeling and to my obsession with all things handmade,” says Tiaan. “Some are 150 years old – Cape stinkwood carved and inlaid with contrasting wood to create beautiful patterns that I find contemporary today. That’s the thing with items that are well made, they retain value and surpass trends.”

Tiaan has also launched a new fashion collection for summer 2019/2020 entitled “Remember You Are” inspired by the poetry of Ntokozo Mbokazi. The womenswear range pays homage to beautiful fabrics. The pieces, which feature graphic silhouettes, are made from vintage fabrics Tiaan sourced over years from fabric mills that are no longer in business or don’t have the capacity to reproduce certain styles.

Pottery also formed part of Tiaan’s inspiration – both for the collection and the boutique – as he examined his collection of Rorke’s Drift pottery. In the Remember You Are collection the pottery’s pleasingly simple shapes inform the oversized details on a shirt or the volumes of a sleeve. And for the store, the nuance of the colour of clay guided the palette – greyish blues, warm ambers, pale yellows.

Of the boutique, Tiaan concludes, “It’s this strange relationship between the older antiques, the modern furniture, the sculptural ceramics, the progressive art pieces and the clothing collection that sets the perfect tone for a new way of doing retail, I believe.”

Find the store at Shop 55UM Hyde Park Corner, on the corner of Jan Smuts Avenue and William Nicol Drive, Hyde Park, Johannesburg. Visit tiaannagel.co.za to find out more and stay up to date with the brand on Instagram (@tiaannagel). 

The post Cool Spaces: Tiaan Nagel appeared first on Visi.

Søvn, a 5-room boutique guesthouse located on the winding Geneva Drive in Camps Bay, was recently revamped into a collection of contemporary spaces.

“We wanted to do something different, combining our Scandinavian heritage with African living,” says owner of Søvn, Thomas Framnes. “We wanted to create simple, elegant, individual rooms with a connection to the surrounding areas. The idea of creating a multifunctional, unique space that could work in different ways was important.”

While each room needed to be different, it also needed to be connected by a common aesthetic. Thomas turned to the likes of designer Ana-Maria Tomić-Lategan, who played a key role in the overall look and feel of the project, as well as St Leger & Viney for wallpapers, Mazista for tiles, Newport Lighting for light fittings and The Best Blind Company for blinds and curtains. Urbanveld and Ross McGill were responsible for the landscape design, while Anton De Sousa Costa from Elem Stonemasonry was in charge of the garden’s stone work, hand-carved from Malmesbury Shale.

The private en-suite rooms range from the colourful 12 Apostles suite, featuring bright geometric wallpapers and striking works of art to the peaceful Atlantic View and Lion’s Head suites, in palettes of pale pink and calming blue. The Garden view room takes on a tropical theme in wallpaper and lighting choices, while the Sea View room makes use of bold patterned wallpaper in a rich blue. The furniture in the rooms, from desks, tables and chairs to benches and bathroom shelves, was locally designed and made by Woodstock’s Crib Creations and Leon at CCXIX. “The tables and chairs in the breakfast lounge and penthouse lounge are made by James Mudge,” adds Thomas.

Browse the gallery above to get a peek inside this luxury guesthouse.

For more information, visit sovn.co.za.

The post Renovated Camps Bay Guesthouse appeared first on Visi.

Local design brand The Space has launched a new store called Now Showing at 109 Waterkant Street in Cape Town.

The interiors are minimalist, featuring only mirrors, concrete and whitewashed walls, making the space highly adaptable for different offerings, including showcasing the collections of local designers such as Colleen Eitzen, Amanda Laird-Cherry, Leigh Schubert and ALC.

In order to rejuvenate the store concept and what is on offer, Now Showing will be reinvented every six to eight weeks. You will be able to shop at the venue, participate in after-hours events and attend takeovers by leading designers.

The Dark Side is the first themed curated collaborative concept taking place in the space until 28 October 2017, celebrating all things eerie and enigmatic, from charcoal water and inky black pasta to decadent dark chocolate.

Event Dates at Now Showing:

• The Dark Side: Until 28 October 2017

• The Light Side: 2 November 2017 – 27 January 2018

• Apartment Waterkant featuring Egg Design: 1 February – 31 March 2018

Lammershoek Wine Tastings:

Lammershoek winemaker Schalk Opperman will be facilitating weekly private wine tastings with only 20 spaces available for each night. To book, email info@nowshowing.co.za.

• 7, 14, 21, 28 September 2017 and 5, 12, 19 and 26 October 2017.

For more information, visit thespace.co.za or follow The Space on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter.

The post The Space’s New Boutique: Now Showing appeared first on Visi.

Moro Gelato, well-known around Cape Town for its mouthwatering flavour combinations, has opened a (seriously) pretty shop on Long Street.

Designed by co-owners Stefano Moro and Heine van Wyk, the pretty interiors of the boutique store are inspired by their adventures abroad. “We’ve both been traveling around the world appreciating art and architecture throughout our lives,” says Heine. “I worked in Milano for a design company, dealing with AutoCAD and other programs, so the step between imagining and creating wasn’t far.”

Moro Gelato’s new home needed to be more than a simple brick-and-mortar space – it needed to have character. “At 165, we found a shop that was tiny, but where time had given a sense of life to the walls.”

To ensure customers enjoy their experience of the shop from the moment they walk in, the space was designed with relaxation top of mind. This in turn influenced the wall’s gentle, calming colour palette, which Heine and the team painted themselves. “Our desire is to welcome people and make them feel free to taste what we make,” says Heine. “We wanted a space that complements our gelato, where the wall and cup colours don’t overpower the natural tones of our ingredients, like the light green of the pistachio or the beige of our natural hazelnut. The strongest colours in our shop will always be the natural shades of the seasonal fruits we use for our gelato.”

The gelato at Moro is made in the traditional Italian way. “Our creative roots are deeply connected to that country,” says Heine. “One day during a trip to Cremona (one of the capitals of food in Italy) we stumbled upon the most beautiful pastry and sweets shop, Pasticceria Lanfranchi, dating back to the 1800s. We immediately felt a connection to that shop, one of the most elegant we’ve ever seen, with an offering of the best food products in the region. It became a natural prerequisite that the home for Moro Gelato should be as refined as the passion we put into our hand-made products.”

Marchese, one of Moro’s most popular gelato choices, featuring a combination of Tahitian Vanilla, macadamia nut butter and caramelised almonds, is the flavour that Heine thinks best describes the design of the space. “It has a very gentle creamy colour, broken by details of crushed nuts. At the first bite there’s the surprise of the richness of the flavour, then the combination of the ingredients develops into a harmony that leaves you with a good memory of our gelato. We put in a lot of work in our kitchen and certainly Marchese is one of the flavours that require lots of attention to detail –  we even caramelise the almonds ourselves”. 

Moro Gelato is located at 165 Long Street, Cape Town. The shop is open from 11am until 6pm Monday to Friday. Visit morogelato.co.za for more information and to find out more about the flavours on offer.

The post Beautiful Spaces: Moro Gelato appeared first on Visi.

The Yves Saint Laurent Beauté Boutique in Sandton is one of only 40 stores in the world that offer the YSL Le Vestiaire des Parfums range of unisex fragrances.

Created in the memory of one of the most influential couturiers of all time, the new Yves Saint Laurent range of unisex fragrances is appropriately named Le Vestiaire des Parfums, meaning The Wardrobe of Perfumes – it is an interpretation of the fashion trends pioneered by the designer. The range comprises five scents: Tuxedo (patchouli and dark spices), Caban (pink pepper and tonka bean), Saharienne (neroli and white musks), Trench (citrus and iris) and Caftan (incense and Eastern benzoin).

Those who live far from Jozi won’t have to miss out. Simply contact Stuttafords and arrange collection from your nearest store.

The post Yves Saint Laurent Le Vestiaire des Parfums appeared first on Visi.

Bulgari, contemporary jeweller and master of precious gemstones, brings Rome to Africa with a boutique that recently opened in the iconic hub of style and luxury, Sandton City Diamond Walk.

The store opened in May 2016 as the first monobrand boutique of its kind. It was designed by world renowned American architect Peter Marino to feel like a little piece of Rome, with Mediterranean origins and an Italian touch. Marble reminiscent of ancient Roman buildings, coupled with classic geometry make for a luxurious combination of innovation and tradition.

The 146 square metre store is framed by black Grand Antique marble and white Travertine Navana columns that give way to the iconic Condotti windows. The windows are embellished with imperial saffron shantung silk to complement the cream and saffron colour theme and bespoke furniture pieces chosen by Marino.

Careful curation of origami tiles in the different hues of gold that are used in the brand’s jewellery, together with Italian walnut parquet flooring in geometric patterns creates the illusion of natural light. The walnut wood has a degraded effect, as each segment is carefully sun-dried for different lengths of time before being crafted together by artisan carpenters.

A Carlo Scarpa-inspired, oval-shaped counter in galvanised iron is illuminated by two crystal chandeliers by Vistosi. For the exclusive viewing of the most prized pieces, there are semi-private areas that are defined by Pantheon mesh and the Condotti eight-point star that is symbolic of balance, harmony and cosmic order.

Visit the boutique Monday to Saturday from 9am to 8pm and on Sundays and public holidays from 9am to 6pm.

The post The BVLGARI Boutique appeared first on Visi.