Mud started early one hot morning in January of 1999, it came into being with the persistence of one person that wanted to make a difference! Philippa du toit started this as a poverty alleviation project she was determined to make a difference Mud was truly born out of poverty out of hope and out of the will to make that difference.
The early years of mud was manufacturing beautiful and bespoke handmade pieces of ceramics with a few shops buying the goods then in 2003 the bead project was started , this project was started in a small town called Clocolaan where Mud wanted to make a difference, the bead project, working with illiterate and destitute people, used mud's recycled clay to handmade clay beads. This lead to sustainable business but it was struggling, Philippa's husband Werner jumped in and decided to design the first clay bead chandelier this was early in 2004.
This marks the birth and the blossoming of the Original Mud Chandelier© From this point the Original Mud Chandelier© changed numerous lives touched and created jobs all over the world. More than 10 new companies where created with this idea, each with an extended family of hundreds of people from, Africa to India to China, this was the birth of an icon an african Icon. a tiny bead that changed hundreds possibly thousands of lives.
A beautiful marriage of Africa and Europe the African renaissance has begun , A glass crystal interior with a earthy clay exterior! Never before did exist, a clay bead chandelier nor a wooden bead empire shape chandelier an african first.
Today you can buy numerous beaded chandeliers from numerous people, but there will always be only one original Mud clay bead chandelier!!
The original Mud chandelier© received many international accolades and was exhibited in MOMA New York, was snapped up by the Ralph Lauren© store in New York and has since graced the elegant homes of the rich and famous, and yes Batman also owns one!
Who could have known from the dusty village in africa.