12/05/2026
The Alfred Pendant was the first piece we made when we introduced telewire into our work at Mash.T; and it holds a history worth sharing.
The pendant is named after Bab Alfred, a master telewire weaver we had the privilege of working with. He was first introduced to the material in 1976, and his journey deepened nearly a decade later when he met pioneering weavers Bheki Dlamini and the late Elliot Mkhize, who brought him into the art of wire weaving, a practice that would become central to his life's work.
Telewire weaving has long been rooted in KwaZulu-Natal, where Zulu watchmen spent long hours at guarding posts weaving discarded telephone wire into small decorative objects. The material itself — overlooked, surplus wire — was transformed through patience and skill into things of genuine care and beauty.
We find something quietly profound in that lineage. A material once woven into keepsakes at roadside posts now living a different life, decades later, in a thoughtfully styled lodge in Malawi, curated by conscious-aesthete Heather Boting. The craft adapts. The story continues.
📷 Sarah de Pina
