Inspired by a trip to the US and powered by her background in fashion, Nola Goto is reimagining kids toys using the fabric felt. Hand sewing every item at her home in Harare, she is bringing her own twist to the childhood world of wood blocks and lego pieces. Founding her business SuSo Crafts last year, Nola Goto has slowly been carving out her own niche corner of fabric based accessories.
As she recalls it, creative pursuits are not something that started now but almost as far back as preschool. Beginning with shaping play dough into real life objects and every thing possible, Nola’s creative journey would lead her into doing Art as a subject in high school before pursuing a degree in Fashion Design.
Nola considers creativity to be something that runs in her veins. As she tells it she had a very creative upbringing, which saw her often encouraged to express herself from a young age. So when she chose to study Fashion Design at the Capetown College of Fashion Design her family was extremely supportive.
After graduating from the three year program Nola went into retail. Although challenging in some aspects she found that she enjoyed it. From starting out working at a thrift store she has maintained a career within the niche boutique space. However there was a certain part of her creative side that wasn’t satisfied with this alone.
This is the itch that she would finally scratch with the establishment of SuSo Crafts. The seamstress says the idea came to her while she was on a trip to the US. During a visit to a children’s museum with her daughter, she was struck by a light bulb moment.
We went to the one pretend food section (at the museum), which was a native food section and I just thought I would love to do this for my kids in Zim (Zimbabwe). So I just thought let me tinker with some stuff while I’m in the US and tried a few different things like quiliting but that didn’t really work. I eventually started googling fake foods and what to make them with and that’s how the idea of felt came up.
Felt is a textile produced by matting, condensing, and pressing fibers together. It can be made of natural fibers such as wool, or from synthetic fibers. While the fabric has a long history in arts and crafts, Nola Goto’s ideas for it are far from the typical.
Initially starting off by watching how her child played with the first toys she created, Nola would refine her felt craft work until everything came together for her to finally launch SuSo Crafts to the world.
Although her business is still young Nola acknowledges that the journey hasn’t been all smooth sailing, and she’s not only had to dedicate time to creating her products but creating a market for them too. However she has had encouraging moments over her first year in business. She especially describes the feeling of seeing the joy of a child’s face when they receive their order as being priceless.
When I make something and a parent purchase’s it for their kid, and they show me the results of it with their kid like being happy with what they got, is what’s really the most rewarding thing.
The seamstress has so far built a relationship with two pre-schools, that regularly order learning products from her. At the beginning of this year Nola was also part of the of The Next Move Mobile Residency (for young emerging designers) by AfriDigital and the British Council. This project led to Nola coming up with an activity book made entirely of felt.
The book, titled “On A Mission”, drew inspiration from Zimbabwe’s recent first satellite launch. The main character is a young Zimbabwean girl named Tafara who aspires to travel into space.
I made it [the book] about our first satellite and a young girl who has dreams of flying into space because we need more kids in Africa wanting to fly into space and this is the time to plant that idea…What Zim child wouldn’t want to dream of going to space. I want kids to feel like that, because If we can launch a satellite now what’s the next move?
The book is somewhat complete but as it is a book made from fabric, Nola is still working out a few kinks for it to make commercial sense.
I’ve still got the prototype but I haven’t made other books to support it yet, reason being I need to downsize it, to make it available commercially. Right now I feel the book is still in it’s experimental stage.
In the long run she dreams of SuSo Crafts opening up it’s own store, a little corner for kids to explore their imagination with felt. She wants to see a change in how we see recreational spaces for Zimbabwean children. The children’s museum being one particular idea she would like to see implemented here.
Nola Goto is part of ‘Tha Plug In’, a Creative showcase by the British Council in partnership with #enthuse Magazine.
