Jack London famously cautioned “[Y]ou can’t wait for inspiration, you have to go after it with a club”. As if heeding the great American novelist’s clarion call, Nikki Schomer the owner and designer of Gold Bottoms walked away from a career in the fashion industry 2 years ago – having invested all of eleven years – and set out on a daring and fascinating adventure. Designing planters. Worry not, no one expected you to guess that one.
Even with my considerable appreciation for greenery and flowers in particular, I had never ever imagined it possible to imbue plants with such artistic beauty. Flowers represent and symbolize beauty. Now how on earth do you beautify the one universal symbol of beauty?
Along come the folks at Gold Bottoms with their aesthetically pleasing planters which they dress up in colours and patterns only the most inspired souls can conjure up. Every single planter is different and in a way unique, with an identity and a different story. Influences drawn from Nikki’s past life in the world of couture visibly come to bear in the considered, creative and yet intentionally arranged hues dressing up the planters. She playfully jokes “…we make plants proud”. And boy they do!
Modern interior decor is constantly evolving. Timeless classics like a masterfully designed planter should in all likelihood remain relevant all the while. With colours ranging from the dark, deep and evocative to the brighter and more jovial of shades, and everything in between, there truly is something for everyone. A splendid piece with a dominant charcoal beautifully married with other shades of grey caught my eye. Masculine and understated, just the type of art piece to bring character into any living room. Myself and Nikki concurred it is one hell of a statement piece. Thank god they make them per order, that way they can never run out.
Whilst on the topic of making them, and apart from their incontrovertible beauty, planters from Gold Bottoms are 100% locally produced! Now how often do you hear that these days. These artefacts of sheer creativity are imaginatively conceived and created in the Mother City through a patient and arduous process involving different types of craftsmanship such as hand casting and painting, to produce gems ready to adorn any living room.
The design process is quite a delicate one. For starters, each planter is dressed in no less than 5 layers of paint so as to enhance its durability, a quality which causes zero harm to a planter’s investment value. Telling different stories and speaking to a myriad of past lives, each range of planters is inspired by a specific theme such as the “Namib” range which is inspired by the “colours of dunes and their movements”.
The modern gentleman is as discerning as ever. He is also acutely alive to the reality of our collective advancement being inextricably bound to our ability to support our own artists and cultivate our own art. Check out Gold Bottoms Instagram account @goldbottompots . fortunately for you and I, they do free deliveries anywhere in South Africa.