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Hat After Hat
At the Earth Age workshop, three remarkable entrepreneurs and their team of craftswomen champion South African design on the world stage.
FASHION / BULLETIN / 20.12.24
Read time / 9 mins
Mikael wears his take on an office t-shirt in a formal mid-weight cotton pique. On the blind behind him is the FIELDS brand totem, designed by Daniel Ting Chong.
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[01] Helix hats are a marriage of cotton and hemp threads: hemp provides structure, and cotton provides colour. Blue Hour, pictured here, is one of hues Dior Men used for their SS25 Collection.
There’s a stark contrast between Woodstock Main Road’s frenetic energy and the serene, tonal interior of the Earth Age workshop. One storey above street level in an exceptionally preserved 1860’s Tudor-style building, high ceilings and tall windows allow natural light to bathe the medley of timbers that form everything from the stairs to cabinets, tables, chairs, and floorboards. A team of five women, headphones on, are serenely and productively crocheting, beading and sewing. This is a far cry from the laborious grit (and noise levels!) synonymous with fashion manufacturers.
An unassuming A4 page stuck to the left of a light switch lists 17 descriptions and, crucially, the order of beads to be attached to the brand’s flagship Helix crochet bucket hat for a recent order that’s boxed and ready to ship to Paris. My eye is drawn immediately to numbers 8 through 11, their descriptions simply D, I, O and R. It’s a reminder that this space, already impressive in its scale and atmosphere, houses formidable forces.
Helix hats are a marriage of cotton and hemp threads: hemp provides structure, and cotton provides colour. Blue Hour, pictured here, is one of hues Dior Men used for their SS25 Collection.
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Ziplocked for safekeeping, a Dior Men Spring 2025 runway sample hat crocheted by Earth Age, alongside Ashley’s invitation to the show at Paris Fashion Week. Dior used the exact short brim Helix hat design, adding beads by French ceramicist Yann Petillault.
Precious Munetsi, Earth Age’s first hire and head of crochet, crafts a Helix hat. In Dior’s Earth Age documentary, she describes crochet as an addiction: “When I start, I don’t want to stop.”
Elektra Georgiadis emerges from around a corner as if having just stepped off a beach — a modern-day Botticelli Venus with bangs. She met Earth Age co-founder, Amy Kunz, in primary school in Johannesburg, and Ashley Wagner in high school in Hartebeespoort. The late-twenties trio, dressed in coordinating earth tones, welcome the HOMEY team and lead us upstairs to the loft they’ve recently added to the lease, scrubbed down, and painted off-white. (Neatly stacked in a corner, 8 large transparent crates contain every fabric offcut ever.) Andy Reeves and Antoinette Degens settle in to produce the imagery for this story.
Two street-facing nooks with A-frame ceilings serve as office space for Ashley and Amy, who introduced herself to Elektra on the playground by approaching her with a “Hi, I’m Amy. Do you want to be friends?” Roughly two decades later, the fine art graduate still has that youthful openness and enthusiasm. Amy’s office has a storybook quality: the four of us sit in a circle on pillows and a dusty pink quilt, drinking tea underneath a mobile sculpture Amy made from reclaimed styrofoam.
Pre-pandemic, the trio relocated to Cape Town, Amy to study and Elektra to be near her friends between stints as a stewardess on cruise ships (“It’s intense, but I loved it.”). Ashley was in town for modelling, but craving structure, quickly pivoted to working boutique retail. “Growing up, I always wanted to have a shop,” she shares.
Earth Age’s success serves as proof of so many modern South African ideals, from social upliftment to mindful production and female entrepreneurship.
“She’s been a businesswoman since day one,” Elektra confirms.
“Ash is so business minded,” Amy adds. This kind of double confirmation characterises our interview. The dynamic between these women is almost comically sisterly. Ashley’s petite, nymphlike build offsets her determined and highly efficient personality. Her side of the loft has a large desk with an organised filing system and a stack of British VOGUEs featuring Earth Age product.
Earth Age became official over Zoom during 2020’s hard lockdown. By then, the founders’ friendship had solidified as their lives intertwined. Standout memories include a Kendrick Lamar concert (all three are huge fans) where Elektra and Ashley queued for 13 hours and were mistaken for backup dancers. A crochet lesson from Amy’s grandmother’s bestie, Beryl, proved formative, as did shared shifts at a Sea Point boutique, post-breakup pizza nights, and a trance party called Freaky Forest.
Ashley, Elektra and Amy invested every bit of energy and savings they had into building this ethical, female-run and operated accessories label stitch by stitch, without external funding or infrastructure. Earth Age’s products and aesthetic are not overly calculated or modelled after an outside entity. It is a reflection of the founders’ passion and ambitions for themselves and planet Earth: a healthy climate and a safe, nurturing space for its inhabitants. These values are synonymous with feminine energy, and are translated into each product through the time and care taken to construct it. “It kind of speaks through the product without you even knowing,” Ashley muses. “It's like a subconscious thing. When people see our hats, they’re like, ‘Wow, these are amazing!’ without knowing how many hours it takes [to make].”
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The Crossbody Geo Bag’s wrap-around band takes 8 hours to crochet. It has the tightest tension of all Earth Age products, ensuring seamless transportation for mangos and more.
The Guardian hat is named after its ability to protect its wearer from the sun. Conceptualised alongside the crochet Helix, this cotton canvas style was perfected later, introducing the Earth Age founders to the process of pattern making and CMT (Cut, Make, and Trim). This Guardian is almost complete: the finishing touch is a frayed hem to add that signature Earth Age texture.
The Helix hat is available in short brim, beaded, and long brim styles. Crochet allows for a durable combination of dyed cotton and natural-hue hemp, providing the hats’ colour and structure respectively. A rich textural experience that’s ageless, genderless, and foldable for easy packing, it’s no surprise this is the flagship Earth Age design. There’s also a cotton canvas bucket style with a textural frayed hem. The Akaa necklace fulfils a diverse spectrum of colour cravings, strung with beads made from recycled glass bottles. And the Geo bag’s wrap-around crochet band tapers from base to strap, stitched with a cotton body and drawstring closure that somehow feels appropriate for work or beach days.
Initial product development centred around Elektra and Amy’s crochet skills, but the need for additional woman power quickly became a priority. Ashley, working a part-time administrative job at a restaurant, was referred to Precious Munetsi by one of her colleagues. Precious would meet them in coffee shops to work on pattern development, and later in a room not far from the current workshop which they rented for a thousand rand a month.
“We each paid R333,33 a month,” which felt like a bold financial move at the time, Elektra says.
“That number is very significant,” notes Amy. “Our shares are 33.3%”
The Earth Age business is built on Cape Town’s market economy. Selling one hat on day one at the V&A Waterfront’s renowned Oranjezicht City Farm Market in 2021 blossomed into a successful summer season. By March 2022, production moved into the current space, and profits were funnelled into making a big Johannesburg debut at the KAMERS/Makers market in Sandton City. Additional craftswomen were trained with the objective to produce as much stock as possible.
A rich textural experience that’s ageless, genderless, and foldable for easy packing, it’s no surprise the Helix hat Earth Age’s flagship design.
Amy remembers the day the courier came to collect their eleven boxes of product: “I looked at everything leaving our space and I was like, did we go in too hard?” Her comic timing triggers a burst of laughter from Ashley, hand in front of her month.
Over in Sandton, “Everyone watched Ash and I unpack. They were like, ‘Wow, you guys brought a lot of stock’,” Elektra says.
"We didn’t sell a thing,” says Amy.
“Huge mistake,” Ashley confirms. “We got burnt.” Back in Cape Town with too much stock and nowhere to sell it, the mood was sombre. But with five part-time women depending on an Earth Age income, the founders felt more determined than ever to make it work.
“Another summer at the Oranjezicht market, and it was better than ever,” Ashley says.
“Boom, boom, boom,” Amy mimes product movement. “We recovered.”
“We learned a hell of a lot through that,” Ashley says. “What we were capable of doing stock-wise, and how to manage our money better.” Store number two opened at The Watershed in September 2023, and that’s where, three months later, Edward Crutchley, the Design Director at Christian Dior, discovered the Helix hat.
“I think he bought six hats, all the different styles and colours,” Noma Nzala, the sales assistant on duty that day, remembers. Edward didn’t mention who he worked for, but was wearing a t-shirt printed with a hairy male torso. “He stayed on my mind because of that t-shirt,” she laughs.
“I was lying on the couch when I got the email,” Ashley remembers. “I was like, huh? No, this is definitely fake.” She googled Edward and WhatsApped a photo to Noma, asking if she’d seen this man at the store. Noma responded affirmatively with a screenshot of his receipt and voice note describing their somewhat unusual interaction.
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Two Golden Hour Helix hats are illuminated from within. The tension of a crochet stitch determines the size of a hat — looser is larger and tighter is smaller.
There are an average of 3600 stitches in a crochet Helix hat. The pattern starts from the central tip, moving outward in a spiral configuration. “It’s symbolic,” notes Amy, “for expansion and progress.”
Six months later, with Ashley pulling off a “dank wholesale order” to pay for flight tickets, the founders were seated at the Dior Men Spring 2025 ready-to-wear show at Paris Fashion Week, a few rows behind Anna Wintour. They had produced 30 sample hats for the collection: Dior used the exact Helix hat design (some colours are exclusive to Dior, while others, like Blue Hour, are consistent with the Earth Age offering), adding beads by French ceramicist Yann Petillault.
Waiting for the show to start, the founders couldn’t say for sure whether or not Dior’s creative team would actually style the product on the runway. Amy sets the scene: “The lights went out, the song came on, the first guy walks out, and there’s our hat.”
“And we’re like…” Ashley makes a guttural oooooooh! sound, radiating excitement.
“Hat after hat. It’s just like, our hats…” Amy begins before Ashely joins her to finish the sentence, “were everywhere!”
Earth Age’s products and aesthetic is not overly calculated or modelled after an outside entity. It is a reflection of the founders’ passion and ambitions for themselves and planet Earth.
“It was powerful,” says Elektra.
“It felt like euphoria,” Amy confirms. “We were just holding onto each other. I was crying. Ellie was crying. Ash was shaking. She’s a shaker, we’re criers.”
Dressed in their hats and crochet clothing sourced from a mentor’s brother’s van in an alley behind a mall in Hout Bay, the trio made quite the impression. Outside, fashion week photographers shouted, “What’s your brand, what’s your brand?” Christina Fragkou, a South African who shot the show backstage, already knew the answer, “Earth Age from the Oranjezicht market?” she called.
“Yes!” they replied.
Running Earth Age is a non-stop, always-on, unpredictable exercise. Throughout our conversation, the trio note their appreciation for a moment to reflect on their trials and savour their achievements. Their success is marked by unwavering commitment, sheer passion, and constant sacrifice: until last year, all three founders had part-time jobs to support themselves and the company. Despite the risks of mixing business and friendship, they have prevailed.
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Earth Age accessories are designed to fold and travel. Hats and bags are sold in a drawstring bag, similar but different to this one, made from upcycled deadstock fabric in neutral colours.
The Helix hat, Earth Age’s flagship and first design, was developed with the founding trio’s first hire, Precious Munetsi.
“I would say the reason we work so well together is because the three of us are so different,” says Amy.
There’s no specific division of responsibility among them. “The three of us do everything,” Ashley explains, “but we do understand how our dynamic works, and we work within those dynamics.” It helps that each of these women contain multitudes: Amy, not your average art school graduate, shows me a series of confounding Excel sheets that keep track of every artisan, material, and stitch — literally — that goes into their products. Ashley’s knack for visual merchandising is as strong as her business instincts. And although Elektra has a particularly calming, relaxed presence, her co-founders describe her as a “very hard worker” (Amy), and “super OCD-organised” (Ashley).
I’m curious about the ladies’ hiring strategy. The team now consists of 5 women downstairs, 11 more who crochet from home, and three sales assistants for the markets and Our Era, a South African design boutique they opened this October in De Waterkant. Ashley believes in a personality-first approach. Skills, while important, can be taught and honed. “The women downstairs, they’re all genuine, loyal, respectful people,” she says. “Making them comfortable and happy is important.”
“We wanted to build the rules with them,” Elektra explains. “Like, what kind of work environment did they want?”
“Nobody in those conversations went over the line and asked for things that were unrealistic, which says a lot about who they are as people,” Ashley attests.
“The reason we work so well together is because the three of us are so different,” says Amy. “The three of us do everything,” Ashley explains, “but we do understand how our dynamic works, and we work within those dynamics.”
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FIELDS sweaters are knitted from Responsible Wool Standard-certified fibres, meaning the sheep are ethically raised on farms that protect soil health and biodiversity.
[01] Mikael wears his take on an office t-shirt in a formal mid-weight cotton piqué. On the blind behind him is the FIELDS brand mark, a totem designed by Daniel Ting Chong.
The founding trio use their own heads as a size reference for their Helix hats. From left, Elektra is extra small, Amy is medium/large, and Ashley is small/medium.
FIELDS sweaters are knitted from Responsible Wool Standard-certified fibres, meaning the sheep are ethically raised on farms that protect soil health and biodiversity.
[01] Mikael wears his take on an office t-shirt in a formal mid-weight cotton piqué. On the blind behind him is the FIELDS brand mark, a totem designed by Daniel Ting Chong.
Accessories Brand
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Earth Age’s success serves as proof of so many modern South African ideals, from social upliftment to mindful production and female entrepreneurship. The common thread, crocheted throughout all of it, is teamwork.
“All the women that work for us are older women of colour,” says Ashley. “It was something we were fully aware of when we started this business. And frankly, it made us quite uncomfortable in the sense of, like, being their boss. We never wanted to be a bossy boss, you know what I mean? It’s about keeping that respect.”
“Respect,” Amy emphasises. “It was hard [in the beginning] because we didn’t know what we were doing. We made mistakes.”
“And they were patient with us,” says Ashley. “We actually grew together. They saw you guys ironing your waitressing shirts when they’re on their way home and you were about to go to on your shift. They understand that we are so serious about this. Even though we are young, even though we are privileged, we are gonna do this, and like, we’re gonna make this happen for all of us, you know?”
Precious certainly does. Her trajectory with the company has been remarkable, from taking a chance to work with three bright-eyed ladies in their early twenties, to developing a product that would match the standards of one of the world’s most revered fashion houses in Paris.
“When Presh found out about Dior she was like, ‘Well girls, we are going places!’” Ashley remembers.
“She always says that,” Amy agrees.
“I said, we are going places,” Ashley continues. “We’re going places together, everyone together.” —
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