The City That Stole My Heart
July 28 2026, 0 Comments
The phone pings with news that our storage facility in Joburg has been vandalised.
It’s the first day of 2019 and I’m at the coast, over 700km from home.
The photos in the message show that the container’s contents have been rummaged through, tossed around by the thieves as if they were searching for a bargain.
Luckily I’ve had a few days to unwind so I digest the news with less angst than I would have a week ago. Another break-in, more admin, who cares? I convince myself. Joburg has numbed us to petty crime. We’ll deal with it when we’re back in town.
Then I remember where I last placed the Love Jozi archive. One sample of every t-shirt we ever produced was diligently put aside, packaged with its themed swing tag and neatly stored in labeled drawers. Initially this was to make sure that I always have a sample on hand of each design in each colour and style for production purposes. In the last couple of years they were rather stored as keepsakes, for nostalgia, a fabric diary of sorts. This year they were going to be used to publicise this book.
We produced all the earlier t-shirts ourselves. It didn’t seem right to print onto bought garments like most t-shirt brands. We wanted the product itself to be as memorable and long-lasting as the graphic.
We approached it more like a fashion label would. We designed the patterns so that the fit would be unique, chose the fabric and silk-screened the artwork. We also made seasonal colour changes, and campaigns to promote each new range.
As the collection of samples grew, so a story started unfolding. Sometimes
quirky, sometimes serious, each range emerged from observations of what was happening at the time. Johannesburg was undergoing reinvention, and another reinvention. As a graphic designer with blank t-shirts as a canvas, I was excited by the city’s acceleration..............................
