It’s 226km to Colesberg, you’ve got a full tank of gas, half a pack of cigarettes, it’s dark and you’re wearing sunglasses. Hit it.
“Long road, windmill, slight bend in long road, sheep on rocky outcrop, long road, long road, three cars coming towards you, bend in long road, how nice that felt, mountains in distance, long road heading towards the middle of them, lorry, another lorry, telephone lines looping pole-to-pole-to-pole-to-pole while the fence-fence-fence-fence runs underneath, long road, windmill in the cooling air.
“And as the sun weakens and the landscape turns to grey, something starts to rise in your soul. The Karoo has caught you off guard, by surprise and you want to cry.”
These are fridge magnets that draw you in, that tell a story. They’re called Fruj: “It’s not Frug or Froog or Frooj. The ûh sound is important. It is the ûh of stuff but keep it low and slow, lean on it, then end with a djsh. Fruj. You got it. The place you keep your magnets. And your mulk.”
Alice Rowe says the idea for the magnets came about while she was “bored, sitting at our stall at Sarcda [a bi-annual retail, gift, toy and décor exhibition], staring up at the ceiling of Gallagher Estate, wondering what we should do next. I thought about my sister’s fridge, which is always covered in stuff.
We have magnets from all over the world, but none from here — except the bad ones with pictures of the Big Five. I thought it would be a nice idea to do something that was not like that. Something typically South African but not in a curio-shop sort of way.
And so we came up with things like Nguni cattle, the Karoo, ladies wearing different dresses — almost like paper dolls. There was absolutely no market research whatsoever. We just went with what we thought would be fun and approached local illustrators to come up with the designs.” Once the images have been popped out, the remaining part of the “sheet” is designed for use as a magnetic picture frame.
“The whole project is made in South Africa,” Rowe says. “We found a guy in Edenvale who makes the magnets for us. He also rebuilds Minis in his workshop, so you have to love him. He doesn’t like automated processes because the registration is sometimes out, so he cuts by hand with old printing presses that he’s redesigned.”
To order Fruj or see more of the range, go to www.firehorsebrand.com