Home is where the soft life begins

A new wave of softer interiors flowed through Decorex 2026 at the Cape Town International Convention Centre at the end of June, with designers and tastemakers celebrating comfort and a more intuitive approach informing SA décor and design.

Texture, muted colours, curved lines and sensory comfort were the buzz words and there was a tangible celebration of artisanal and hand-made products adding to the lived-in aesthetic of the annual fair.

The Daily Dispatch spoke to the joint executive creative directors of Decorex Africa and 100% Design Africa Alan Hayward and Garreth van Niekerk who said the hard edges of minimalism and brutalism are fading and are being replaced by “the soft life”, this year’s Decorex theme.

“We are seeing people taking their wellbeing into consideration and comfort becomes part of that,” Hayward said.

“Minimalism is beautiful if you are a very peaceful Japanese person, but the truth is that most of us aren’t and we have clutter and all sorts of baggage that comes with that and I think when you are accepting your culture, accepting your heritage, accepting the complicated parts of your life building that all into something that you can live with. So it’s about wellbeing and the softness that comes with that.”

Does that mean our squashy couches are the epitome of cutting-edge design?

“Well, I love a chair that makes you feel uncomfortable for 10 minutes in a doctor’s waiting room,” Van Niekerk says. “You don’t want to be too comfortable in a doctor’s waiting room. You get in and you get out. There’s architecture that makes you bend lower to enter it or slide into a narrow alley.

“So for me the soft life is less about perfect comfort and more about looking at your life, where you are and be more accepting about the things you love.”

Hayward believes that comfort need not be slovenly; that it can be achieved with style.

“When you are comfortable it can be in a very disgusting shlumpy way by wearing your pink slippers to the supermarket, but there is a classy way of doing that and still being comfortable. You can have sensible but beautiful shoes and it is exactly the same in design.

“Some things are considered but they are still comfortable and that is where design specifically comes into it – making things look good and effortless but still allowing you to lie down and watch TV.”

Everyone knows that colour is the simplest, most affordable way to instantly elevate a space and this year a soft palette is trending.

“I think when we said the soft life everybody thought ‘cool, we’re going beige’ which is the complete opposite of what we think it should be,” Van Niekerk says.

“If you look at nature, there’s luminous oranges, there’s bold lime greens, so I think we started by educating people that soft doesn’t mean dead behind the eyes or a rotting piece of wood...”

Hayward sees a lot of neutrals as a base for restrained dashes of bolder colours.

“We are seeing a lot of sandy colours with a strong colour coming through. Maroon is a huge colour at the moment and then all types of pinks and warm colours. But then there are also the shocking blues — one little pop of something electric that is amazing in interiors and that you are seeing everywhere.

“We saw it in Milan and we are seeing it here at Decorex — chrome and metallics are definitely still here.”

In recent years black bathroom fixtures have been de rigueur, but upkeep can be problematic and low maintenance is certainly part of our new soft life.

“Black is out because it’s just a hard thing to keep up and to commit to,” Hayward says. “Once you do it you have to do the sink, the shower, everything. I think the things that are simplest to look after are what we want, so silver is in as well as fixtures that are not too fussy.”

Having said that, the duo agree that there is more decoration required. This means more vintage treasures and a more handmade, artisanal aesthetic, although chaotic clutter will never be tolerated.

“You are seeing things that are more vintage, more decorative across the board. Everything’s just got a romantic feeling to it, and we are seeing that everywhere.

“I think the hard push towards brutalism and minimalism is not as strong as it used to be and we are leaning into a more romantic, soft feeling,” Hayward says.

As for exterior spaces, the breakout trend this year are breeze block walls which were massively popular in the suburbs between the 1950s and 1970s.

“Breeze blocks are everywhere,” Hayward says. “You are seeing them in a slightly different way. People are using them in smaller quantities because they are expensive. In the seventies they were a very uniform brick, but now you get the glazed ones in different shades. We have some nice SA brands that are doing that.”

And then of course, there is AI which cannot be ignored by any industry.

“Designers are all using it in the background, but not really talking about how they use it,” Van Niekerk says.

“At Decorex, we have AI artworks by Pretoria artist Arminda da Silva that were developed just for us. It’s like bringing the AI universe into the real world and how that lives with design. I think it’s happening all over in design. People are designing their rooms, their restaurants and making them in real life. We are just doing it in a more artistic way for the fair. It’s about using AI as a tool to get things done faster.”

Encapsulating the soft life ethos was Decorex Africa and Designer Africa’s 2026 designer of the year LRNCE, a Marrakech-based design studio founded by Belgian designer Laurence Leenaert and her Moroccan husband Ayoub Boualam.

The duo’s first exhibit in SA has comfort and artisanal handcrafted design at its heart. Patchwork and embroidered textiles in dreamy colours, painted ceramics, rough-hewn sculptural vases, textured tiles in earthy colours and chairs enrobed with hand-sewn quilts and tufted wool rugs drew masses of interest at the design fair.

“Our colour palette is inspired by Marrakech,” Boualam says. “The idea was to play with softer materials and softer colours like earthy pastels.

“At our atelier in Marrakech we have a team of six women who embroider and sew and then we also use more than 50 artisans in the city.”

He says there is a monumental move away from the grey trend that has dominated interiors in past years with LRNCE priding itself as being the antithesis of mass-produced décor.

“We work a lot with design architects in the Mediterranean and the US and big hotels there and can customise whatever they want, including carved plaster, framed textiles and tiled tabletops and ceramic pieces assembled by using finger techniques.

“It is an amazing honour to be recognised by Decorex — it’s a big achievement for us.”

Also enlisting the skill and artistry of artisans around them are brother and sister duo Claudia Beltrame-Heywood and Vic Beltrame of iconic KuGompo City luxury accessory supplier Castellano Beltrame.

Known over the decades for their trimmings, tassels and curtain tie-backs, the brand has been reimagined, with cutting edge design and striking wall art made of oversized tassels as well as giant lampshades.

“We still do traditional trimmings,” Beltrame-Heywood says, “but we now do giant tassels as well. Wall hangings are trending at the moment as opposed to hanging a picture. Our lampshades are brand new and are perfect for hotels and reception rooms.”

A point of pride is that everything is made in KuGompo.

“We have skilled artisans and for them this is a labour of love and a passion. We even have a beaded lamp made by a bead artist at the bottom of Old Transkei Road and the ceramic portion of one of our hangings was also made in the city.”

Also representing the Eastern Cape was textile designer Thandazani Nofingxana of Mthatha-based studio Abaantu in Africa, also known as Chap Studio.

Funded by the Eastern Cape Development Corporation in association with Small Business Development, the stand featured striking tufted rugs and cushions embedded with raw oak elements as well as shawls and jerseys.

“The cotton is soft and it feels like I’m creating soft sculptures with flowing tassels as embellishment,” Nofingxana, who studied at Nelson Mandela University, says.

Combining softness with sustainability was Libby Brown of Cocoon who makes a curated range of bags from recycled carrier bags, bottles and other plastic waste. The result is a dreamy collection of white duffel bags, back packs and bags that line shopping trolleys for practical packing.

Beautiful lighting featured strongly at this year’s show. At Handmade Story, which began as an upliftment project in KZN and is now a bespoke brand with international clients, showstopper chandeliers were made of delicate clay shards that lit up like works of art.

Living and working the soft life was Madelein van der Merwe of MiaBella who fashions crepe paper into massive floral installations for events and weddings.

“I do it all myself from imported Italian crepe which is very sustainable. The giant flowers are very photogenic – they look like soft floating clouds.”

There was more softness at Heimvee Huis, where owner Ellani Basson presided over the kind of bedroom everyone dreams of as a sanctuary and snooze palace.

A performing violinist when she is not designing slip covers, headboards and curtains, Basson employs “grannies” to create her serene designs.

“I don’t have a factory, I am home-based in my Durbanville garage. We like to create a lived-in feeling and we always opt for earthy colours in raw textiles to create a calm space so you can rest because life is crazy. Everything is slow produced. We use slow methods and there is value in that because we all need to slow down.

“This is why Decorex’s soft life theme speaks to us.”

• Decorex Johannesburg will be at the Sandton Convention Centre from July 30 to August 2 2026.