Advertising only reinforces the current worldview and desires that drive overproduction and overconsumption. While advertising can sometimes help us make informed decisions, there is also a lot of deception sustaining the bottom line. We have created systems that feed off each other and we are in many ways locked into unsustainable practices, not to mention the loop of reliance on these systems to provide much-needed employment — albeit mostly below living wage.
I’ve been an architect and product designer, and even edited this illustrious publication. The “great pause” that was the pandemic lockdown and a mid-life meltdown made me take stock and change course, setting sail on a new adventure away from what I can only describe as emptiness after unfulfilling years in the desire machine. My current postgrad studies in sustainable development at Stellenbosch University and my exposure to the impassioned pursuits of Jackie May and team at Twyg, who advocate for a sustainable fashion industry in the Global South, have reawakened my creative spirit and taken me on a spiritual journey that has revealed much healthier alternatives to our current mode of take-make-waste. But designers also need to ignite more meaningful dialogue with communities around socio-spacial issues, such as the ones that Sumayya Vally and fellow architects are having at CounterSpace, because design is not an exclusive club, as some would like to believe.
My last year-and-a-half of “unlearning” suggests that we should start by decolonising and rethinking the current education curricula. Young creatives should be equipped with effective tools to challenge conventions rather than reinforce the status quo. The linear extractive practices of the past should be left behind and, instead of focusing on myopic tasks, creatives should grasp the complexity and interconnectedness of everything around them and the consequences of their actions.
As we are in “plastic-free” July, the original plastic bag is a great example. Now symbolic of pollution, it was once sturdy, designed for multiple uses, and meant to replace paper bags and prevent deforestation. Yet, ironically, it is the plastic bag, albeit a mere micron of its former self, that suffocates the very environments it was meant to save. The democratisation of fashion has put better-quality clothes on backs and food on tables, but through hyper-marketing and shareholder greed it has also led to fast fashion and, in turn, environmental degradation, social in-justice, and questionable labour practices.
As I engage more, more questions arise, such as the contradictions of “sustainable development” and how the corporate world has weakened the meaning of “sustainability” as marketing execs and advertisers co-opt the word and cover up their complicity in maintaining the status quo. The “slow food” movement and, by extension, “slow fashion”, resonates with my new world view, offering a more “regenerative” approach. Using systems thinking, their playbooks are imbued with the ethics of “care” for all humans and the stewardship of nature. But we must first break free from the systemic Newtonian world view that separates and isolates phenomena.
Design encompasses so much more than the latest trends or aesthetic preferences. It involves understanding the intricate web of processes, from farms and forests to mines to labourers, and the environmental impact of production, use, and disposal. We can design a more sustainable future but must consider the entire life cycle of our products and make responsible choices that reflect the interconnectedness of all stakeholders. For those wanting a deeper dive, I recommend looking at complexity theory, which also offers a useful lens to highlight the interrelatedness of everything, down to the tiniest carbon molecule. I wish this had been a compulsory subject when I was in high school. We need to broaden our thinking.
In his most famous and controversial work from 1952, titled 4’33”, US composer John Cage instructed his orchestra not to perform. His point: there is never complete silence, “everything we do is music”. The “music” in this instance was generated through environmental sound and that of the theatre audience. This is creative genius at work. Looking outside his field, the avant-garde composer and music theorist, known for breaking with convention and leaving much of his music to chance, also found inspiration for his “silent” work in Zen-Buddhist meditation and the principle of non-discrimination: allowing an experience to take shape without preconceptions.
There is a lesson here for all of us, particularly for designers lost in a world of artifice and edifice when they could better apply their design thinking to innovate pathways out of the mess. To be clear, there will always be mess, that’s just the nature of things, but it can also be a lovely, flavourful, organic motivational carrot for any designer worth their salt. The term “design thinking” first emerged in the post-war era of the 1950s and 1960s when architects and engineers engaged with complex problems in a rapidly evolving world. There are similarities to be found between this perspective and that of the Buddhist heart-mind approach in the way we “feel” and “relate to one another”, which assumes an empathetic, assumption-free attitude in seeking solutions through observation without bias.
And, like the concepts of “interbeing” and “Umuntu ngumuntu ngabantu” (in isiZulu, “a person is a person through other people”), design thinking should recognise the interdependence of all phenomena, seeking innovative and interconnected solutions rather than only treating symptoms and not causes. In recent years, I have noted a paradigm shift in the luxury sector, particularly as consumers raise concerns over social and environmental issues, which has led to the concept of “sustainable luxury”. As former CEO and industry entrepreneur María Eugenia Girón writes in her book Inside Luxury, sustainability is not only part of a new vocabulary and practice but is also “found in the essence of luxury, in its ancestral meaning”.
This presents a huge opportunity for African creatives to differentiate themselves through their unique aesthetics and handicrafts rather than competing with the modes of the Global North. While there are already many unique voices leading the way, there is still limitless potential for South African and continental creatives. As my favourite T-shirt proclaims: “Africa, your time is now.” Traditionally, luxury sells style, not trend, and Africans are known for their style. As fashion commentator Helen Jennings notes, taking a fresh approach to African craftsmanship can help redefine luxury in terms of ethically made, beautiful objects with authentic stories, thus adding value rather than trying to compete with mass production.
As many European luxury brands appear to be diluting their provenance in pursuit of global domination, our continent is more than ready to use its rich fashion and textiles as media for storytelling. It’s also a vehicle of self-expression for both designers and those wearing their clothes. These messages are championed in the work of celebrated Kenyan fashion curator and filmmaker Sunny Dolat of multidisciplinary The Nest Collective in Nairobi.
According to the Ellen MacArthur Foundation, as our continent ushers in a new textiles economy, there is broad acknowledgment that a circular economy — a design system — also holds the key to a prosperous, inclusive, and resilient fashion industry. Design thinking, with its emphasis on creativity, experimentation, and empathy, can unlock fresh and unconventional solutions. By challenging existing paradigms, designers can inspire change and contribute to a sustainable future. Isn’t it time to harness the designer superpowers and co-create a world that thrives on equity, resilience, and care?
• Gary Cotterell is our editor-at-large and a board member at twyg.co.za
The Read
The design (re)generation
It’s time for creative problem solvers, dreamers, and futurists to unleash their superpowers
Design can be functional and technical, even digital, sometimes squishy and frivolous, but also hugely emotive. It factors into the clothes we wear, the chairs we sit on, the food we eat, and the cars we drive. It also influences our endless scrolling on social-media feeds and the systems that operate SpaceX rockets. Design has the ability to define the spirit of an age and, in the right hands, is a powerful guide for inspiring change and shifting desires.
And while desire is a basic survival mechanism, in this context I’m referring to its associations with the established flamboyant cultural behaviours that drive our conspicuous consumption. Our world is faced with a polycrisis encompassing environmental degradation, social injustice, and a multitude of interconnected challenges. The popular poomoji, with its “super-faecial” smile, may bring light-hearted humour to digital conversations, but it’s time it gets a redesign with a grimace that reflects our reality.
Addressing the “mess” or, what design theorists Horst Rittel and Melvin Webber in the 1970s referred to as “wicked problems” — the multi-dimensional and hugely complex problems we still face today — requires more than just an emoji update. Designers have long played a pivotal role in shaping our future, for better or worse. From systems design to pretty, functional objects, we possess unique “superpowers” but have momentarily lost our way, intoxicated by popularity and self-importance, weakened by the kryptonite of consumerism.
NOW AVAILABLE: The Design Issue
Advertising only reinforces the current worldview and desires that drive overproduction and overconsumption. While advertising can sometimes help us make informed decisions, there is also a lot of deception sustaining the bottom line. We have created systems that feed off each other and we are in many ways locked into unsustainable practices, not to mention the loop of reliance on these systems to provide much-needed employment — albeit mostly below living wage.
I’ve been an architect and product designer, and even edited this illustrious publication. The “great pause” that was the pandemic lockdown and a mid-life meltdown made me take stock and change course, setting sail on a new adventure away from what I can only describe as emptiness after unfulfilling years in the desire machine. My current postgrad studies in sustainable development at Stellenbosch University and my exposure to the impassioned pursuits of Jackie May and team at Twyg, who advocate for a sustainable fashion industry in the Global South, have reawakened my creative spirit and taken me on a spiritual journey that has revealed much healthier alternatives to our current mode of take-make-waste. But designers also need to ignite more meaningful dialogue with communities around socio-spacial issues, such as the ones that Sumayya Vally and fellow architects are having at CounterSpace, because design is not an exclusive club, as some would like to believe.
My last year-and-a-half of “unlearning” suggests that we should start by decolonising and rethinking the current education curricula. Young creatives should be equipped with effective tools to challenge conventions rather than reinforce the status quo. The linear extractive practices of the past should be left behind and, instead of focusing on myopic tasks, creatives should grasp the complexity and interconnectedness of everything around them and the consequences of their actions.
As we are in “plastic-free” July, the original plastic bag is a great example. Now symbolic of pollution, it was once sturdy, designed for multiple uses, and meant to replace paper bags and prevent deforestation. Yet, ironically, it is the plastic bag, albeit a mere micron of its former self, that suffocates the very environments it was meant to save. The democratisation of fashion has put better-quality clothes on backs and food on tables, but through hyper-marketing and shareholder greed it has also led to fast fashion and, in turn, environmental degradation, social in-justice, and questionable labour practices.
As I engage more, more questions arise, such as the contradictions of “sustainable development” and how the corporate world has weakened the meaning of “sustainability” as marketing execs and advertisers co-opt the word and cover up their complicity in maintaining the status quo. The “slow food” movement and, by extension, “slow fashion”, resonates with my new world view, offering a more “regenerative” approach. Using systems thinking, their playbooks are imbued with the ethics of “care” for all humans and the stewardship of nature. But we must first break free from the systemic Newtonian world view that separates and isolates phenomena.
Design encompasses so much more than the latest trends or aesthetic preferences. It involves understanding the intricate web of processes, from farms and forests to mines to labourers, and the environmental impact of production, use, and disposal. We can design a more sustainable future but must consider the entire life cycle of our products and make responsible choices that reflect the interconnectedness of all stakeholders. For those wanting a deeper dive, I recommend looking at complexity theory, which also offers a useful lens to highlight the interrelatedness of everything, down to the tiniest carbon molecule. I wish this had been a compulsory subject when I was in high school. We need to broaden our thinking.
In his most famous and controversial work from 1952, titled 4’33”, US composer John Cage instructed his orchestra not to perform. His point: there is never complete silence, “everything we do is music”. The “music” in this instance was generated through environmental sound and that of the theatre audience. This is creative genius at work. Looking outside his field, the avant-garde composer and music theorist, known for breaking with convention and leaving much of his music to chance, also found inspiration for his “silent” work in Zen-Buddhist meditation and the principle of non-discrimination: allowing an experience to take shape without preconceptions.
There is a lesson here for all of us, particularly for designers lost in a world of artifice and edifice when they could better apply their design thinking to innovate pathways out of the mess. To be clear, there will always be mess, that’s just the nature of things, but it can also be a lovely, flavourful, organic motivational carrot for any designer worth their salt. The term “design thinking” first emerged in the post-war era of the 1950s and 1960s when architects and engineers engaged with complex problems in a rapidly evolving world. There are similarities to be found between this perspective and that of the Buddhist heart-mind approach in the way we “feel” and “relate to one another”, which assumes an empathetic, assumption-free attitude in seeking solutions through observation without bias.
And, like the concepts of “interbeing” and “Umuntu ngumuntu ngabantu” (in isiZulu, “a person is a person through other people”), design thinking should recognise the interdependence of all phenomena, seeking innovative and interconnected solutions rather than only treating symptoms and not causes. In recent years, I have noted a paradigm shift in the luxury sector, particularly as consumers raise concerns over social and environmental issues, which has led to the concept of “sustainable luxury”. As former CEO and industry entrepreneur María Eugenia Girón writes in her book Inside Luxury, sustainability is not only part of a new vocabulary and practice but is also “found in the essence of luxury, in its ancestral meaning”.
This presents a huge opportunity for African creatives to differentiate themselves through their unique aesthetics and handicrafts rather than competing with the modes of the Global North. While there are already many unique voices leading the way, there is still limitless potential for South African and continental creatives. As my favourite T-shirt proclaims: “Africa, your time is now.” Traditionally, luxury sells style, not trend, and Africans are known for their style. As fashion commentator Helen Jennings notes, taking a fresh approach to African craftsmanship can help redefine luxury in terms of ethically made, beautiful objects with authentic stories, thus adding value rather than trying to compete with mass production.
As many European luxury brands appear to be diluting their provenance in pursuit of global domination, our continent is more than ready to use its rich fashion and textiles as media for storytelling. It’s also a vehicle of self-expression for both designers and those wearing their clothes. These messages are championed in the work of celebrated Kenyan fashion curator and filmmaker Sunny Dolat of multidisciplinary The Nest Collective in Nairobi.
According to the Ellen MacArthur Foundation, as our continent ushers in a new textiles economy, there is broad acknowledgment that a circular economy — a design system — also holds the key to a prosperous, inclusive, and resilient fashion industry. Design thinking, with its emphasis on creativity, experimentation, and empathy, can unlock fresh and unconventional solutions. By challenging existing paradigms, designers can inspire change and contribute to a sustainable future. Isn’t it time to harness the designer superpowers and co-create a world that thrives on equity, resilience, and care?
• Gary Cotterell is our editor-at-large and a board member at twyg.co.za
Heraldry and the legacy of signet rings
In ‘Gilt’, Mary Evans incorporates SA history and Cape Town itself into installations
Architectural integrity
• From the July edition of Wanted, 2023.