Living Life in Luxury

There is something classy and elegant about choosing the right final touches to interior decor that just brings to life someone’s vision.

For Luxury Pillows, creating the right accompaniment to any furniture or styling of a home is what can make or break the way its look and feel are perceived.

Founded just this year to cater to all of our inner decorators, the company produces unique and never-before-seen ‘knotted’ throw pillows in a variety of materials and colours and has fast been gaining popularity these months. The idea for them came when founder and self-taught seamstress Anna Iifo felt uninspired while shopping, and tasked herself with changing the interior decor landscape.

“One day I woke up wanting to change all the pillows in my house. I went to all the furniture shops, but I did not like anything I saw on the shelves, so I thought to myself, ‘why don’t I just buy material and try and make my own pillows?’,” she recalls.

Though she meant to only decorate her own house, once her friends saw the impact the unorthodox designs had on her place, they wanted their own. Within the first week of starting she already made some sales to people close to her and that motivated her to turn this into something bigger.

She bought herself a sewing machine, taught herself a few trade secrets and then began work on what is now a budding enterprise.

Iifo currently operates from the comfort of her home, from where she does personal deliveries and couriers to other towns. She’s a full-time employee at Telecom Namibia, but works with her cousin to create the pillows.

The Namibian company has other designs and also custom makes orders for clients, but this particular knotted item is what gains her attention and has pushed her business forward.

“The support has been overwhelming, fuelling my ambition to keep this brand up and running,” she says.

She also sells long, braided “bumpers” for babies to snuggle up to, and your standard rectangle throws specifically for sleeping on or for brightening up any space.

Iifo says she has major plans to expand into other home decor and interior items as she is passionate about making spaces beautiful and more habitable, being driven by a passion to create homes that are luxurious.

“I love being in beautiful spaces, and throw pillows are always the icing on the cake when it comes to decor,” says the Ondangwa native.

For your own knitted throw you would have to fork out N$200 or N$250, depending on the size, while prices for other products range between N$150 and N$450.

– Anne Hambuda is a poet, writer and social commentator from Windhoek. Follow her online at @anne_hambuda.