Winning designs highlight SA culture

LOCAL designers made their mark last week at the #REDExperiment 2.0 awards ceremony in Cape Town.

The annual design competition offered creatives the opportunity to design the hotel’s new staff uniform, which included a T-shirt, a cap and a long-sleeve jacket. The winning designer in each of the three categories received a cash prize of R10,000 and their design will go into production.

Durban’s Sinenhlanhla Lombo won best cap design, and Glenwood’s Joshua MacKenzie won best T-shirt design, along with Chad Jakes Linden from Cape Town, who won best jacket design.

Leonie Andereya, Curator at RED said that the main thing they were looking for in this competition was for the designs to tell a story and connect RED to South Africa, its people, culture and vibrancy. “Our previous uniforms were inherited from our head office in Europe and had no real connection to our location in South Africa. As passionate patrons of the arts, we also want to be proud supporters of SA designers and provide a global platform for them to be recognised.”

The cap design took an interesting spin on the hotel’s euro-centric roots, while bringing in a bold South African flavour. “I was inspired by the Edwardian era, more specifically the painting of Mona Lisa. I wanted to include her iconic smile in my textile print and compliment this with a wild textured look synonymous with Africa’s natural beauty,” said Sinenhlanhla.

Catching the judge’s eye with his bold and daring design, Joshua raised attention with his ‘Being Normal is Boring’ T-shirt design.

“It’s no secret that we’re crazy for eccentric and unconventional style, and we just loved how Mackenzie’s design boldly played with the essence of our brand, yet still remained true to himself and his design aesthetic,” said Andereya.

Joshua recently completed his Bachelor of Arts Degree at Vega School, and said he will be using his winning cash to buy a new laptop so that he can keep producing better work.

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