Li’s Forecast #10

The creative custodian

Lidewij Edelkoort

Column

July 2026

Lidewij Edelkoort

is one of the world’s most beloved and influential forecasters. She writes a bi-monthly column for See All This titled The Future is Handmade, where she shares her views on a handmade future and spotlights unique handmade objects. Today: handmade mohair blankets, aprons and textile works from the Karoo.

Column

July 2026

Fig 1. Looms and textile works in the studio of Frances van Hasselt, the Karoo, South Africa | photo: © Frances van Hasselt

Born in the absolute landscape of the Karoo – desolate plains, monumental formations, millennial sediments, and otherworldly colours projected onto early morning clouds – beautiful Frances van Hasselt grew up on her parents’ farm among beautiful Angora goats. When washed, their fleece becomes luminous and lustrous, yielding one of the most distinctive materials in the animal world. Mohair, an ancient fibre, is endemic to the Karoo and interwoven with its culture and people, a substance of sunlight and rainfall, a source of life in a place where humans and animals depend on one another, and where respect is the dominant rule. Her father told her to first understand where fabrics come from by spending time in nature.

A simple lesson that taught her the main principle of creating textiles directly born from the landscape. ‘We need to start designing pieces informed by nature,’ she manifests.

Lidewij Edelkoort

‘Mohair, an ancient fibre, is endemic to the Karoo and interwoven with its culture and people, a substance of sunlight and rainfall, a source of life in a place where humans and animals depend on one another, and where respect is the dominant rule’

Fig 2. Angora goats, the Karoo, South Africa | photo: Anke Riesenkamp

Hence her ardent dedication to farm-to-fabric, the magic adventure she shares with the land, the animals, the ancestors, and her family of craftswomen, forming one body performing different functions. Choosing mohair from the farm, washing it by hand, drying it in the sun, dyeing it with plants, spinning it by hand. All artisans are artists in their own right, narrating legendary stories of pain and prowess by stitching and embroidering past and present into their cloth. Frances knows that her passage is written in time, and as a custodian she wants to imprint her moment on earth with her soft-spoken yet stoic personality. She says that ‘these textiles are the homes of souls, the fibre of animals, the droplets of rain and the vastness of the unknown. Raw textile maps of where we have come from and where we wish to tread tomorrow.’

When she gives a talk, recounting the stories of her artisans and telling the stories of her artworks, I love that she breaks up her language with sudden bursts of Afrikaans, her voice reaching out in an intimate, impactful manner. Through painful times we are aligned.

Discover a selection of Frances van Hasselt’s hand-made, unique and limited edition mohair blankets and wraps, voorskoten – Afrikaans for aprons – and textile works in our new Art Room.