Rooted in origin, woven for living

Why a phrase about the beginning of time became the working brief for a furniture studio.

There is a Setswana way of saying that something has always been: go tswa ko ga Lowe — from Lowe, from the place of origins, since the beginning of time. It is not a brand line. It is the kind of phrase you hear at a table, used to settle an argument about how long something has been done a certain way.

We borrowed it because it describes a way of working rather than a look. Weaving is old. The low chair, the lidded basket, the pendant that softens a hard light — these forms did not need inventing. What they needed was patience, good material and a contemporary line.

So the studio works backwards from the material. Rattan and cane want to be curved; they resist right angles. Follow that and you get the deep, generous seat of the curved couch set rather than a boxy frame with weave stapled to it.

The result should not feel like a costume. A LOWE piece is meant to sit in a modern home in Johannesburg or Cape Town without explaining itself — familiar, quiet, and clearly made by hand.