Homewares with Heart

Fair trade and thoughtful aesthetics feature in equal measure at Melbourne store Pan After

Behind an unremarkable red brick warehouse in a residential Collingwood street is Pan After, a new retail space devoted to home goods and antique textiles hand-picked from around the world but with a spotlight on Africa. Run-down and partitioned when mother-daughter team Mandy and Phoebe Munro took hold, the former quilt factory has been transformed into a calm, light-filled space with exposed trusses and oak flooring. The showroom has been outfitted with mid-century lamps, a vintage park bench from Marseilles and point-of-sale field desks dating back to the South African war with Angola. Products are displayed on aged timber beams, while an entire wall is blanketed in a soft blue curtain that parts to reveal floor-to-ceiling shelves lined in baskets of natural fibre. Pan After’s curated edit also includes an assortment of other imports: ceramics from New York, scrubbing brushes from Mexico, candles from Los Angeles and Indian shopping bags.

Mandy’s pioneering vision has been resolute since she began travelling to Africa in 2002 for her first wholesaling business: to support handmade craftwork that’s of superior quality, thoughtfully made and beautiful. ‘We know where everything is from,’ says Phoebe, who has inscribed each swing tag with the product’s origins. From Zulu wedding hats to cow-horn cups, everything has a story. And after over 17 years in the industry, the Munros continue to marvel at the resourcefulness of the communities they work with. ‘They literally find something and use it to make something else,’ says Mandy in reference to baskets made in Kwazulu-Natal from telephone wire, and bracelets the Namibian Himba tribe create from pipes.

Mandy and Phoebe’s years spent nurturing relationships with these communities has resulted in close ties that have led to new collaborations on bespoke products. Their first project has seen the illustrations of Australian artist Alice Oehr transformed into papier mâché bowls by the women at Wola Nani, a non-profit organisation enabling less-privileged women suffering from HIV and AIDS to generate an income through craft. Like all the projects represented at Pan After, it’s a fusion of integrity, authenticity and good design.

Text / Carli Philips
Images / Josh Robenstone