Post - LCvoneats

The Pichulik SS18 Harvest Collection is structured around reaping the rewards of cycles come round both in self and nature, and the bountiful dividend payed forward from one's own consistent efforts. How apt a theme as this very special style story sprung from a collaboration between women with whom I share a volt of creative and personal history.

Pichulik creator Katherine and I met when we were in University, Kat studying fine art and me English literature. Though we had mutual friends we were not entirely sure of one another, until one drunken Sunday, when the little dynamo imparted to me through a cold cloud of Stuyvesant Blue at Cafe Caprice that her French father had recently shared some vital life wisdom. "A woman needs a pair of red pumps if she thinks ANYTHING of herself", so Kat proclaimed in a whiskey pitch. With her accosting yet wrap-around-the-finger charming way of holding an audience, this statement was just on the right side of random to rope me into conversation, now some 14 years running.

Kat the catalyst has championed my creativity for as long as I've been experimenting with it, throwing ideas and inspiration at me so liberally, I could have built myself a few empires had I been blessed with her tenacity. Though we are both very particular in our sense of aesthetic and strong headed respectively, Kat and I have only ever clashed when truly under pressure, and even then the outcome was worthy of the dispute. Kat's vision is unlike anyone I know and admire. She draws resource from a deep well of self-knowledge, a connection to her environment and an ever-curious guidance from the vivacious and divine. This manifests into an evolving body of work that seems resistant to stagnation. I believe that kat has but scratched the surface of what is possible, but I am obviously bias (as her #1 fangirl).

Alix Rose, photographer of this story, and I used to work for the online publisher 10and5, where I was content manager and she my ears on the ground. The platform is a dedicated South African creative showcase, then in its infancy, and as the only two employees Alix and I had to do a fair bit of hustling and late night thumb sucking for new content to get three stories online per day.

Our coup was organising an event around the annual advertising awards in Cape Town. Together we transformed a muddy lawn into a Mexican sausagefest with pretzels alongside skeletons hanging suspended from trees. Then there was that swarm of bees that decided to visit too, but ultimately the event went swimmingly, read: 60 crates of sponsored Mexican beer were drunken. Henceforth our team spirit lay cemented. Since those days Alix has evolved as a photographer with strong intent, focusing on food, still life and fashion. She is also the editor of indie food magazine Chips online. with an eye for detail and an easygoing collaborative approach that makes me want to work with her every day, Here is a woman who understands the creative vision without need for ellaboration. Don't know what I mean by that? take a look at her instagram (after you are done here!).

kat and alix have nurtured a friendship on their own accord for many years too. testament to the understanding that passes between the trilogy, this story was produced in 1.5 hours without prior discussion of concept or direction, one late sunday afternoon in Cape Town's suburb Sea Point. And though I was given free reign to style and direct as I please, the end product feels in equal parts a shared success.

Photography: Alix Rose Cowie; Styling, direction & layout: Leonie von Hase; very special thank you to Nadya von Stein and Katherine-Mary Pichulik.