Small but industrious

WORDS & PHOTOS Lisa Johnston

A new design shop in Melville, Flea has brought back some of the youthful vigor that the Johannesburg suburb was once famous for.

Don’t be fooled by its diminutive size, Flea – a new design shop on Fourth Avenue in Melville, Johannesburg – trades in significant items and, when it comes to significance, big is definitely not always better.

In fact, the narrow shop, tucked between an estate agent on one side and The Slug and Lettuce on the other, is an ideal showcase for the type of furniture, lighting and decor items industrial designer and owner Jeff James hopes to sell. “I design with living in mind. Most people are living in smaller spaces, so I am trying to create smaller pieces that will fit in,” Jeff says.

His bold fun-loving steel-and-wood designs have a Scandinavian feel – a kind of industrialised Ikea style – and are aimed at the 20 to 40 year old market. “I’m consumed by design,” he explains. “I can’t go anywhere without looking at the lines of things, how things are put together.”

But some contain elements that are distinctly South African, such as his powder-coated steel-and-leather reimpies stools. “I like to keep things simple. I don’t like to complicate things. I mix-and-match and I like to use bright colours,” says James, who also takes the environment into consideration by using recycled and reclaimed materials as much as possible.

Lighting designs are bold, as are his decorative pieces, but all retain a sense of youthful playfulness. There are bookends that look like puzzle pieces, but double as a human figure, as well as more conventional steel cut-outs of animals.

Even the name of shop has a tongue-in-cheek freshness to it. As a youngster Jeff – or Jeffrey – couldn’t get his tongue around the “rey” part of his name and would refer to himself as “Jef-flea”. The nickname stuck, so when he found his sliver of a shop it was both an obvious and fitting choice.

Flea, The Court, 76 Fourth Avenue, Melville, Tel 084 900 7109, email info@fleadesign.co.za, www.fleadesign.co.za.