Adorned in Imagination: Episode 4 featuring Haus of Stone (Zimbabwe)
Where fantasy intersects with reality.
Moving down the runway of African Creators Festival in 2024, Haus of Stone designs by Danayi Madondo felt magical. They were both powerful and quiet, the movement of sand and cowrie, wind and wheatgrass. Hearing Danayi talk about her work, and how fashion and creating these pieces is her form of storytelling added another layer of depth to the work that we saw.
Haus of Stone is the Zimbabwean slow-fashion brand that Danayi Madondo founded in 2018.
Inspired by the fantastical, it creates understated, experiential apparel for the global conscious wanderer.
The brand utilizes fashion as a vehicle to narrate contemporary Zimbabwean narratives infused with heritage and cultural nuances. Its three pillars are fostering sustainable design practices rooted in waste reduction & alternative materials, visual storytelling & tactile experimentation through traditional handcraft skills.
Community and collaboration are at the core of the brand.
Danayi's textile works emerge from an intuitive and contemplative process that prioritizes the sensory experience. She interweaves diverse global and local traditional handcrafts, resulting in texturally rich textiles crafted through a regenerative design approach that minimizes textile waste.
The day after the fashion show we got to spend time with Danayi, trying on her pieces at the trunk show including ones right off the runway, two of which went home with me. I have loved having them in my collection, and knowing Danayi and her process enriches the experience of wearing them even more!
