Marzipan and Rosenwerth

The other day I reflected back over the last few years and realized that Marzipan had been collaborating with Rosenwerth in Fashion Week and other shows for quite a few years now. So I thought it would be nice to post some of the best catwalk shots as a sort of celebration and a nice way to round off to the end of the year.
Next year we are off to Frankfurt in Feb to take part in Ambiente which is a HUGE trade fair. We are so excited and I will hopefully be posting some interesting stuff about it from next year.

I know I am a lazy blogger and I have tried to change but leopards and spots and all...So this will probably be my last post until early next year. I hope we all have a good, restful december and I wish you all the best until then. Love Karyn.

Summer brights

Whoever said we were dull? OK.. no one ever said that, but some people say some very weird things to me when I go around and show our new collections. I am nearly always amazed at how different people really are based on their different reactions to the same necklace. You either love it or hate it! Sometimes buyers are embarrassed to say no, 'they don't like that one, its not my cup of tea or whatnot', but I've heard it all before and its never personal, how can it be when the very next buyer will do her nut for the very same piece! ....What is that age old saying? ..beauty is in the eye of the beholder, so whether or not you like this new addition to our summer range depends entirely on on what type of beholder you are!

Jewelry party JHB

The country mouse (that's me) is off to the big city! I decided that I needed to shift some of my idyllic( and sometimes boring) seaside village living into the rat race for a week or so. I will be in JHB from the the 15th of August and will be hosting a Marzipan jewelery party on the 19th which is a thursday. If you are in Jhb  for that week per chance and or didn't receive an invitation yet, please mail me for one, or see above for a copy of it. Hope to see you there and I promise more regular blogging from now on. Love country mouse Marzipan.x

Flowers for africa

We recently discovered a fabulous girl called Tanielle who has the most amazing talent for creating craft from what almost appears to be nothing. It is in fact that she has the eye to find something that would seem to be useless to an ordinary person and turn it into something of value. For example plastic bags become gorgeous little crochet flowers with the potential to decorate a lapel or a bag and for us a workable and unusual new element to use in our jewellery. So I found her website, you can find it too at www.forgetmeknot.co.za and we met up, drank yummy coffee and then started to get on with the business of craft or actually recycling... Tanielle is busy teaching previously disadvantaged ladies to crochet with her recyclable material and will most certainly develop a fabulous community project that can and will inspire others.

We have developed a new collection using Tanielles amazing recycled flowers and other goodies. (not only flowers) We are also using beautiful cotton crochet flowers from Projekt, another amazing and inspiring community project founded by Peta Becker in Hout Bay. So we are now proud to be part of and supporting two awesome community projects, so we call our range Flowers for Africa!

Floral Bedlam

Our latest offering which we exhibited at Design Indaba this year (.and seen in previous post), a handmade collar which can only be worn with the most simplest of evening dresses ( I imagine..? ). Not advised to match with floral prints unless wishing to disguise oneself in neighbors' flower garden whilst spying on aforementioned neighbor.. -:O)

Humor aside, it takes Shelley a day to assemble and sew each flower, heart, bead into its rightful place. And so of course we are selling them for a hefty price. A labour of love price..  Any queries can be sent to me at karyn@marzipan.co.za

Marzipan, Martha Stewart and Design Indaba

I must be the worlds worst blogger, posting something only once every 2 months. But then on the other hand, I reckoned with myself,  at least I only post something when it warrants mention. Like in the case of last week-end when Martha Stewart came cruising into our stand at the Design Indaba, camera in hand. But let me start at the beginning otherwise it won't be such an enjoyable story....

So there we were, in our stand at the Design Indaba,  myself and my fabulous friend Cath who was sharing the load of a 14 hour day, 4 days running. But first let me give you some background on Cath. She is the most amazing woman, twice my age, born and bred in the UK now living in Cape Town and a loyal Marzipanist and agent for our company for many years. She has lived and worked all around the world, and has a humour and wit in her second to none. I can't do these shows without her, she is fantastic..So back to the story...there we were in our little 4 m sq when Martha Stewart wandered in, camera ready and buoyed by an entourage of men; bodyguards, press, weapons, the lot. As she started snapping away at our stand, Cath sidled up to her and said politely, 'Madam, if you want to take photographs please ask us permission!'  Two things here, clearly Cath had no clue who she was and secondly, visitors are NOT allowed to take photos of the stands. An issue that was already bothering Cath at this stage as anyone and everyone was snapping away and her patience had been slipping.
So Martha replied to her in a very quiet but undeterred voice, 'I am with the press.' 'Oh! replied Cath, '...well if you need some assistance please do not hesitate to ask .' Martha glanced sideways at Cath and continued to take a few more shots.  A few seconds later she swept herself away, entourage and all following close behind.
That was when I said to Cath, 'that,!,was Martha Stewart!' to which Cath replied, 'Martha Who?' I collapsed in a heap, it was too funny for words.

It soon got around to our fellow stand holders about Caths innocent meeting with Martha and we enjoyed ourselves immensely at the hilariousness of it all. And to top it all off, we discovered that the talk  she had given only hours before had been a total flop. Half of the audience had walked out on her and tweeted nastily across cyber space about her disappointing talk . The whole debarcle of her presentation made it to the front page of the Argus the next day and even the editor of the newspaper clearly didn't know who she was either because her name had been spelt Matha.
To her cred, I believe her second talk a day or so later was brilliant! Go Martha!