Christmas Noir comes to Kramerville

We sat down with Cassandra Twala, co-founder of MOEA Design about their exciting new project, Christmas Noir.

Q: How did you come up with this concept?

A: Stephen Wilson, the CEO of Always Welcome, invited us to put something together in their space in Kramerville. We had very little time and I thought, “do we have enough time to do it properly and meaningfully?” and we said “let’s go for it”, and it has quickly evolved to us putting together this first edition of Christmas Noir, in one week’s time.

Q: What is Christmas Noir?

A: A pop-up experience that aims to bring people, spaces and experiences together. We’ve curated a list of 20 different brands/experiences, all black-owned businesses, from across the continent together in the Always Welcome space in Kramerville.

Q: You say it evolved quickly — had you identified a gap in the market?

A: We’ve been saying for a while, what is this one thing we’ve wanted to do? It seemed something along the lines of what we’ve put together in Christmas Noir was fulfilling a need that people had. We wanted access to great work and brands that we rarely have access to as consumers and the brands often don’t have great market access, this seems to bring these needs together.

Q: How has it all come together?

A: From when we decided to do this, we quickly got onto the phone and reached out to people we know, in our networks and a few cold calls on brands we’ve noticed and admired from afar. We’ve found it all so surprising and incredible how so many people just said yes to this. Everyone is doing this on risk, having never done this before and we’re all just going for it together. Brands have been rushing to produce in time to make it for the first day of trade on November 24.

Q: What are you most excited about?

A: I love the intimacy of small things. For some 20 suppliers is not small, but to us it is. For this first edition, I’m excited about it being the first one too. We are so excited about the people participating in Christmas Noir, and the brands that are from outside of SA managing to produce on such short notice.

Q: What can we look forward to for those of us attending?

A: There are so many to count. We have a lot of brands like KKere from Nigeria, incredible shoes that we’ve never seen in SA. From Ghana, there is Nokware Skincare, a natural skincare brand using ingredients like Shea Butter and aloe vera. The Ninevites is also in the mix with some new products that we have not seen, as well as Maxhosa showcasing their accessories and homeware.

Q: Is there something for everyone?

A: This is a high end, luxury experience, but prices of items range from reasonable to a real spoil-yourself items like the handbags from Seven.

Q: What should we look out for?

A: We are so excited about the launch of the Christmas Noir exclusive, with four limited-edition collabs with certain brands, such as the Christmas stockings in a batik print, to curated wine boxes that are exclusive to Christmas Noir from Magna Carta wines. Christmas shopping sorted.

Q: You keep referring to this as an experience — will there be a specific programme over the three days?

A: Yes, while we are open all weekend, we will also have a specific event programme, like Joy Phala taking us through indoor plant styling, setting a festive table with Vika Shipalana, Coffee Tasting with Tumi Khobane from Monate coffee and wine tasting with Mphumi Ndlangisa from Magna Carta wines. These are all part of the Christmas Noir experience.