Charmaine Taylor

‘I love the idea of using something that was discarded. This is a piece of history, literally and figuratively.’

Charmaine’s ethical fashion pieces are made with a unique material at its core: part of the prison fence from Robben Island. ‘My friend Chris Wift, an environmental artist, went to Robben Island in 2009 where he saw the island being upgraded for the 20th anniversary of Nelson Mandela’s release,’ Charmaine explains.

‘Everything on the island is exposed to the elements, so the original Block B maximumsecurity prison fence had started to deteriorate. This was the fence that had held behind it all the freedom fighters: Nelson Mandela, Walter Sisulu… anyone that was in authority in the ANC. Chris saw the fence being taken apart and wondered what they were planning to do with it. The contractor told him: “It looks terrible for tourism and we can’t maintain it, so we’re going to bury it.”’

Charmaine, who was working as a graphic designer at the time, was looking for a new project. ‘My love for graphic design was just… failing!’ Inspired by Chris’s story, she started making small pieces of framed artwork, incorporating parts of the fence. And so the Legacy Collection was born. Then she thought: ‘You don’t want to have to invite someone to your home to tell them the story – you should be able to carry it around. So in 2015, I started creating jewellery using bits of the fence.

‘I love the idea of using something that was discarded. This is a piece of history, literally and figuratively. It’s from the UNESCO World Heritage Site, but it was bound for a landfill.

‘You can transform a broken past into something beautiful. That’s the story of SA: taking the scars of the past and making it into something beautiful.’