Paint partnership will pay dividends

A NEW COLOUR BEING LAUNCHED GLOBALLY Annie Sloan teamed up with Oxfam to create the soft green hue.

Annie Sloan has teamed up with Oxfam, the global poverty reduction charity, to create a new paint colour, which will be launched globally this month, for the charity’s 75th anniversary.

“Lem Lem” is a soft green, inspired by a visit Annie made to Ethiopia with Oxfam in February. Lem Lem means the lush green of fresh growth in the language of the region.

“Lem Lem” joins the Chalk Paint™ by Annie Sloan range and will be sold in Annie Sloan’s stockists throughout the world and online from this month, priced at R250 per litre.

A percentage from the sale of every litre pot sold will go to the charity to support Oxfam’s work and Annie Sloan hopes to raise £250 000 over three years.

“Lem Lem” is inspired by fields of white alliums Annie Sloan discovered while visiting a rural project in the south-east of Ethiopia. The field belonged to a co-operative of women farmers, funded by Oxfam, who were realising their potential after being provided with loans to buy decent seeds and proper irrigation systems.

The alliums represented money and freedom. One woman with four children under nine had made enough money to get a house, cow, ox, a TV (its arrival promoted a party in the village), schooling, and – unprecedented for a woman in this part of Ethiopia – a bank account of her own.

Annie Sloan says: “What I love is when you look at the allium head from the region the overall impression is white, but then you realise there is green underneath, and green on the petals – a lovely muted green, it really is beautiful.

“I asked one of the women ‘Lem Lem’ farmers, ‘what does green mean to you?’ and she immediately said, ‘growth’ and I thought that was fantastic.

“I feel that ‘Lem Lem’ is representative of my business – a celebration of the idea of female ambition, will and talent.

“I have visited an awful lot of smarty-pants places all over the world, and stayed in very nice hotels, but those women in Ethiopia is what life is really about. People who are farming, doing things, dreams being fulfilled.”

The collaboration with Oxfam is the first time Annie Sloan has worked with a charity on this scale.

‘Lem Lem’ is inspired by fields of white alliums Annie Sloan discovered while visiting a rural project in the south-east of Ethiopia.