Global retail buyers for Design Indaba Expo

The Expo, in its fourth year, provides a commercial platform for South African designers to leverage local goods and services to the global market. It also aims to create discerning local consumers through exposure to the principles and products of good design.

Major brands

The international buyers represent major brands such as Artek, The Gap, Benetton, Conran, Walmart and Anthropology (which has 90 US stores), says expo content manager Lauren Shantall. Smaller, specialist outlets such as Rainbow Gallery and Aviarium in Germany, Zidel Technical in Canada, Rubinette in Sweden and Out of Africa in Spain will also be represented.

Seventeen of the international buyers will be brought out by the Department of Trade and Industry (the dti), which sponsored five international buyers in 2005 and ten in 2006. Last year 30 international buyers attended the expo in total.

The dti-sponsored buyers represent companies such as Carpenter & Company and Amaridian Gallery from New York; Germany’s Ludwig Beck and Arts interior; Japan’s Marubeni Fashion Link, Jun Co and Tokyo Kan; Sweden’s Isandi Konsept As and Springbok AB; and Adila and Purves Two from the UK. The dti will also sponsor representatives of the SA Consulate General in the US and the SA Embassy in Tokyo.

In 2005, the dti-supported foreign buyers ordered in excess of R1 million from expo exhibitors, and in 2006 over R1.5 million.

Fully sold out

The expo has grown from 55 exhibitors in 2004 to 163 in 2006, and is fully sold out for 2007 with over 240 exhibitors, says Shantall. Visitor attendance ballooned from 9000 in 2004 to 15 500 in 2006, and is expected to attract more than 20 000 visitors in 2007.

Nadia Sujee, the dti’s director of creative industries, comments: “The dti sees the Design Indaba Expo as a means of satisfying its objectives of increasing market access opportunities for, and export of, South African goods and services.

“The expo also contributes towards building skills, technology and infrastructure platforms from which enterprises can benefit, and significantly progressing broad-based BEE. It has also raised the profile of design in South Africa by educating local audiences about the value of home-grown design.”

Shantall adds: “The companies will enjoy the benefits of valuable new contacts that they would otherwise be unable to access. The increasing international interest in South African design has encouraged more people to look at exporting and many of the local designs have already met with success as export items.”

Groundbreaking achievements

There have already been several groundbreaking achievements resulting from the Expo, says Shantall. Examples include:

• local designer Heath Nash has signed a royalty agreement with Artecnica, a leading international design manufacturer and distributor;
  
• furniture designer Haldane Martin secured a distribution agreement in Spain; and
  
• the European chain of Conran stores developed the Conran Africa range for South Africa and London.

The upcoming expo will include live, day-long fashion performances, South African music videos and short films. There will be talks on design and the announcement of design awards, as well as live demonstrations of DIY designer projects and interactive design and art projects that visitors can take part in.

The Expo runs alongside the Design Indaba Conference (21 – 23 February) with about 50 speakers of the calibre of music producer Brian Eno, UK product and furniture designer Jasper Morrison and Professor Neil Gershenfeld, the director of MIT’s Center for Bits and Atoms.

Judged the best conference in the world by EIBTM in Barcelona, the conference attracts some 3000 delegates from advertising agencies, movie production houses, architectural firms, the fashion and jewellery industries, furniture and lighting manufacturers.

Go to www.designindabaexpo.com and www.designindaba.com for more information.