Relax into ‘Heirlooms of Everyday Things’, a visual story by Frances v.H Mohair that revels in the comforts and loves found in ideas of ‘home’. Shot in South Africa’s Karoo desert region, it features the mohair brand’s latest Botterblom collection amongst a multi-generational cast of family and friends enjoying intangible moments of intimacy. “Creating an installation of a lived space, ‘Heirlooms of Everyday Things’ evokes that feeling of finding your friend in the kitchen, of a mother braiding her daughter’s hair or the untamed joy of children playing in their own dream reality,” brand founder Frances van Hasselt explains.

Anything but fictional, this project stems from the lifeblood of the brand. The designer grew up on a mohair farm in the Karoo, where she gained a reverence for this idiosyncratic fibre. She has gone on to establish a studio in Prince Albert where she collaborates with a team of local women artisans to develop natural textures that tell the stories of the land and the hands that make them.

Nataal first met van Hasselt and her design partner Leandi Mulder back in 2019 when they presented their first collaborative wearable collection. And since then, they’ve continued to explore the possibilities of mohair’s luxurious materiality, its gloriously wonky textures and earthy tones the culmination of a deeply collective and circular process that reaches from the herdsmen and their flocks through to the talented artisans and their spinning wheels.

The Botterblom collection of rich and raw tapestries is an expression of the brand’s appreciation of place. Here the textiles are seen tumbling and tangling around the well-loved surfaces of two Karoo brakdak cottages, where they are free to come alive with purpose. “Each scene encapsulates the things we believe should be carried forward: humility, humanity, authenticity, humour, kindness, community, nature and nurture – women’s work. Slow and considered making and upcycling forgotten threads into roadmaps of tomorrow.”

We find Leandi Mulder knitting the bath, her threads spilling out onto the floor, and Tannie Roos Balie slamming down a 6-0 tile as a game of dominoes begins. Jackie Burger reclines on the couch reading folkloric stories to the room and Louis van Brakel ponders the dust as it falls across a gentle sunlight. Musicians strum guitars, kids pick up paintbrushes and all the while, the thrum of togetherness weaves its own universal tale.

“The feeling of ‘home’ is different to every person and is what forms the roots of the people we are today,” van Hasselt continues. “And it’s that feeling that gives those heirlooms in your kitchen cupboard a value only you know of. So, let’s celebrate everyday life; her moods, the off days and the on, the cracks and the repairs, but mostly the humour, collective spirit and roadside chat that gets stuck to the pavements and clings to the gutters when the rains fail to come.”