Chocolat Negro is driven by the passion and the satisfaction that comes from creating beautiful and unique things that enhance interiors and your living space. We are influenced by the environment we are living in and we get our ideas from the diversity of people, the amazing landscapes, beautiful nature, our history and our ever changing exciting South-African society. We enjoy mixing traditional local style elements with international design criteria. We like to pair traditional crafter's techniques with new materials and a design style that is an expression of the street culture of our urban cities. We value design that is symbolic and has a meaning and that add value to life.
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| The Firefly Chandelier Made From Traditional Hand-Woven African Beer-strainers |
This Firefly Chandelier is a very unique handcrafted Ceiling Chandelier that bathes the room in a beautiful warm and soft glowing light resembling big fireflies in the night.
We are proud to say that with this design our vision of marrying traditional African craft techniques and organic natural material with modern design has been realized.
We are proud to say that with this design our vision of marrying traditional African craft techniques and organic natural material with modern design has been realized.
The bottom part of this Chandelier consists of five elongated traditional hand-woven beer-strainers made of reed grass. These beer strainers are sometimes still used in rural areas in my country and used to strain a handmade beer brew made from maize.
This technique is centuries old, was cultivated mainly in the rural villages and only a few, mostly old people, are still capable of weaving beer-strainers or baskets in this particular manner which is very complicated and extremely time consuming.
If not promoted this craft will die.
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| The Firefly Chandelier |
We are proud of our range of pillow covers called Kwa Nobantu - which means translated for the people. For the production of the funky pillow cases we use traditional South-Africa ShweShwe fabric. The finishes are done by hand and the cushion covers are adorned with vintage material and unique vintage finds like doilies, ribbons and buttons.
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| The Kwa Nobantu Range pillow cover made from traditional shweshwe |
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| Kwa Nobantu Range - for the people |
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| Hand-embroidered Pillow Case with a Traditional Cattle Motif By the Keiskamma Art Project |
