Urban nomads

WORDS Marguerite Mavros Macdonald

There has always been a yearning for ethnic rarities garnered on unusual trips abroad. Now sourcing one-of-a-kind exotic authenticity has become a trend, and making it look seductive and glamorous is a branch of design in itself. But are we in danger of overdoing it, asks Marguerite Mavros Macdonald.

So who doesn’t have a strip of genuine kente cloth, a stack of suzanis, Bamileke stools from Cameroon, or that Moroccan leather pouffe their parents bought back in the 1960s? Exotic rarities collected on round-the-world trips said something about who you were, the fabulous lifestyle you led, the interesting person you must be.

Westerners have been creating trends from objects found in far corners of the world for centuries now. You could say that the more things change, the more they stay the same.

Though these days when things change, the whole cosmos feels the shift almost immediately. With worldwide interconnectivity, fashions and trends become global overnight. Click. Click. Photograph. Press SEND. And within weeks the new models have penetrated the globe’s emporiums. Within months the world’s interiors take on their new uniform. Same furniture, same sources – whether it’s Pottery Barn US, Okha UK or Weylandts SA. 

Today, more than ever, the connection to places or peoples who have preserved their crafts and traditions is prized. The world is so, well, ‘discovered’. There is a reverence for things that have not been besmirched with the global trash brush. We turn to these earthy reminders to connect us to authenticity. They become our anchors – validating the part of us that wants to prove we are not just click and consume.

So, as sourcing one-of-a-kind exotic authenticity spreads, modelling ramps and homes across the world are sporting all manner of exuberant, glamorous versions of ethnicity. Homeware shops and fashion boutiques are spilling over with temptations for the urban nomad. Gorgeous ikats abound in every form – bedlinen, clothing, cushions, bathing costumes, hand luggage. Old-fashioned blanket-stitching is everywhere – around the edges of polyester fleece blankets, on the hem of your genuine woollen hoodie from Peru, on the seams of sleek linen slipcovered sofas. Similarly, “hand-embroidered” motifs cover everything from duvet covers to designer fabric ranges. We are drowning in all manner of “realness” – vegetable-dyed raw linens, peasant embroideries in carnival colours, and burlap so coarse it would make donkeys itch. For some, the more real it is, the better. For others, only the racy translation of “ethnic” will do. 

We are scouring all the corners of the world to find home-brewed authenticity – the sort you only get if you were really there, face-to-face with the yak, or living in the yurt next door.

Is it a coincidence that the search for authentic echoes current food movements? We get a daily bombardment of “direct from the source”, “extra virgin”, “from bean to bar”, “grow your own”. Deliveries of authentically recycled cardboard boxes full of vegetables still sporting real soil arrive on a weekly basis. Herbs grow on windowsills. Limited-edition wines grow on someone’s rooftop. It’s all about Source. Appellation. Roots. Anything to make us feel as if we didn’t just order it online, or sweep it off the shelf and into the trolley.

Have we just had enough of HAVING? Do we yearn for what is hard to get, what is almost lost? Is everything too accessible? Click. Copy. Select. Swipe. Bookmark. Select. Buy. Ship. Bookmark again. Swipe. Flick. Click. Select. Same, same but different. There we go, haemorrhaging barely digested cast-offs.

But look again. Haven’t we done ikats? Aren’t Bamileke stools so yesterday? Haven’t suzanis been around the block once too often? Is this the Final Irony? Killing it with too much love? 

Pierre Frey available from Mavromac, mavromac.co.za