Volume 5 (Retreat)
A Charming Farmhouse in the Hinterland
Winter 2022
Words by Emma Jude Jackson Photography by Warren Heath Styling by Sven Alberding Production by Bureaux
Frances spent her early childhood growing up in Prince Albert on her family’s mohair farm. In her teenage years she attended boarding school, and was only able to vist while on her breaks. From the charming little town in the Karoo, she would go on to explore the wide world beyond – and only 20 years later did she fully realise that her dream lifestyle was right where she started. Now settled in Prince Albert once more, Frances is the founder of Frances V.H., the label under which she produces her sought-after mohair rugs, knitwear and tapestries.
Asked if she misses the thrill of the fashion industry in Hong Kong or Tokyo, where she harvested some of her business acumen and much of her entrepreneurial spirit before returning to her roots, she reminds you of just how connected we all are now, and that the rest of the world has never been more within reach. Ironically, it was while out there – exploring and working abroad – that she realised she was thinking too small and it would be back home in Prince Albert – a relatively small town set within a vast and semi-desert landscape with dramatic mountain passes – where she could truly unleash the hugeness of her creative spirit.
‘There is something about the Karoo and the antiquity of the place that I feel I have some umbilical connection to. The Karoo is so ancient and so vast. There are open and endless skies and huge landscapes but even going back to a time long before us, this used to be the bottom of the ocean floor, and if you look at it like that, it is completely trippy. The plants look like fossilised coral, the rocks take on new meaning, and if you go to the coast, you will see the similarities between the plant life. Even the Swartberg pass is literally mud that has been crumpled and pushed and hardened into mesmerising shapes. This is a magical place and I am completely humbled by it.’
Frances, who was always interested in fashion and textiles, recalls a glittering Turner Classic Movies phase that could’ve sent her off in many directions in her life, but it was her father (and a natural affinity for the exquisite mohair her family produced) who kept her grounded. ‘If you’re interested in clothing and fashion, you better come and spend some time in the veld, to find out where this all starts,’ he told her once, to which she remembers thinking, as all young adults do, ‘you poor, delusional man, you have no idea!’ He was a wonderful and stylish man, she says, but still a farmer who she wrongly assumed had no understanding of the source of fabrics.
A classic Karoo farmhouse stoep (veranda), where most of her daily life takes place, overlooks a vast field in front of the home. A driftwood mobile made with shells and plastic dinosaurs was created in collaboration with friend and fellow designer, Leandi Mulder. The upcycled wooden trestle table was made from a discarded dairy fence and, paired with mismatched chairs from friends, has become the perfect platform for al fresco meals. A Frances V.H mohair blanket drapes over the veranda couch, an ideal spot for afternoon naps and tea dates.
Little did she know back then that she would go on to make an honest farmhouse and a tiny, intimate barn-turned-studio into her sanctuary, for a craft so deeply connected to its surroundings that it could not exist anywhere else. ‘As a human, you look at the Karoo landscape and you feel endless nothingness, the nature and history it embodies. And yet because you are this one, little person experiencing all of this, the opposite becomes true. You feel like the biggest and most privileged person in the world. You become incredibly conscious of every detail; the purple hue of this flower, or the intense tones in that sunset, the surreal azure of the sky, and at times it feels like I am the only person in the world who sees it so intensely. That is what the Karoo does for me and what I find completely addictive; me and this porous vastness.’
Frances pulled back on her regular commutes to her Cape Town base at the start of lockdown to make Prince Albert her permanent address, which has given her even more time to play in her magical environment. ‘It is when we play that the magic really happens. It is so freeing to be creating from a place where
I know that what we’re making here stems from just walking in the veld. Every fibre is connected to the land and the hands that make it. Every piece has a soul.
‘Going back to textiles, many people think that because mohair is natural and this is the desert, they should be created in natural tones – and, while there is space for that, I must ask if they have ever stopped to look deeply at a praying mantis, or seen the colours in a sunset? It’s completely cosmic and wild. One of mohair’s most wondrous qualities is its ability to capture colour… because it has a natural lustre, curl and character, it gives the finished fabric a luxurious, silky look and feel. It’s wildly celebrated in the textile world for holding colour beautifully, so I use it to reflect the environment from which it originates. Part of being creative is having the ability to see the beauty around you and channel it into your work. For me there is a need right now for colour; it creates pockets of relief in this prickly, unforgiving, scorched earth.’
The endless horizons of the sacred and mystical Karoo mirror Frances’ own capacity for creativity and every piece she creates.
Frances has an eye for the whimsical, sentimental and collectable: here, a simple dried branch becomes an artful detail, brought to life with a pair of hand-painted birds from artisans at the local shop, True Karoo. Her tapestries can be spotted throughout the home: one hangs above an Art Deco-style wooden cabinet from Hong Kong. The open-plan heart of the home leads into a soft, apricot-pink passageway, which warms the space further. The wicker chairs, upholstered in old mohair and wool curtaining with hand-stitched mohair panel details, are nostalgic of her childhood.
Frances has an eye for the whimsical, sentimental and collectable: here, a simple dried branch becomes an artful detail, brought to life with a pair of hand-painted birds from artisans at the local shop, True Karoo. Her tapestries can be spotted throughout the home: one hangs above an Art Deco-style wooden cabinet from Hong Kong. The open-plan heart of the home leads into a soft, apricot-pink passageway, which warms the space further. The wicker chairs, upholstered in old mohair and wool curtaining with hand-stitched mohair panel details, are nostalgic of her childhood.
The restored farmhouse overlooks a dam and fields on which the family’s Angora goats graze. Frances is charmed by the Swartberg mountain range and says that ‘the Karoo strips us back to our roots, with nothing to distract from the soil, scrunched mountain folds, the shifting light, the low-hanging skies, the pastel palette of the faraway shapes and the luminous crunch of the sunburnt soil’. Her woven mohair coat (right) is part of the
SOFA Collection from Frances V.H.
