Creative practitioner specialising in writing, curation, creative direction and design.
Based between Johannesburg and London, my work focuses on South Africa's emerging creative scene. I am the co-founder of Woven Garnet, a platform documenting South African artists and designers.
Woven Garnet is an independent platform I co-founded with Gabriella Diedloff. We document South African artists and designers through in-depth interviews, studio photography and film.
What began as a series of filmed interviews now includes curated exhibitions, an open call for writers and artist representation.
most of my time goes here
Interviews with eighteen South African artists and designers, filmed in their own studios.
My final major project at London College of Fashion, developed from the Volume One interviews.
Our first group exhibition, bringing together seventeen emerging artists around home, identity, memory and belonging.
Editorials, a fashion film, a campaign concept and a self-published zine, produced at London College of Fashion between 2023 and 2025.
A zine on South Africa's creative industry, alongside critical essays on androgyny, masculinity and celebrity.
"The monotony is everything that wants to flatten South Africa into a single story."
From A Colourful Presence in a Monotonous Environment
Co-founder, interviewer and photographer. 2025 to present.
An independent platform for emerging South African creatives. Through studio visits, interviews, photography and film, Woven Garnet brings their work and perspectives to audiences in South Africa and internationally.
I founded Woven Garnet with Gabriella Diedloff, a fellow South African creative based between London and Johannesburg. Gabriella's background is in fine art and curation, and mine is in fashion and writing. We share a conviction that South African creatives are underrepresented in the wider art and design world.
Reaching audiences from within South Africa, locally or internationally, remains difficult. Our approach is to go to the artists directly. We meet them in their studios or in dedicated spaces and talk about their work, their experience of making work in South Africa, and what they want to communicate.
Every session is photographed and filmed, creating a record of both the conversation and the artist in their environment.
Gabriella and I share every aspect of the work equally, from interviews and editing to the website, curation and installation.
Our first series: eighteen interviews with artists and designers from Johannesburg, Cape Town and Durban, released on Instagram with full feature pages on the website. Participants range from painters and photographers to a menswear designer and a DJ duo.
An editorial series in which several creatives respond to a single question. The first edition asks what it means to be a woman working in the South African context.
An exploration of home, identity, memory and belonging through contemporary South African creativity.
Tethered Ground is Woven Garnet's first group exhibition. It marks the platform's move from documenting artists to exhibiting their work, an ambition we have held since the beginning.
Artists applied through an open call. Gabriella and I made the selection, planned the hang, drafted the artist agreements and carried out the full installation. The exhibition brings together painting, photography, collage, tapestry, printmaking and sculpture by artists from Cape Town, Johannesburg, Durban and the Eastern Cape.
The next step is London.
Woven Garnet now represents a small group of artists, placing their work with galleries and collectors.
Our first open call for poetry and writing received 45 submissions, which are currently being shortlisted.
We are developing plans to present South African work in London through group and solo exhibitions.
Woven Garnet presents
An exploration of home, identity, memory and belonging through contemporary South African creativity.
What does it mean to belong to a place? Is home where we were born, where we are now, or something we carry with us?
We are shaped by the places we inhabit, the landscapes beneath our feet, the people we encounter and the memories we leave behind. As we move, leave, return and become someone new, traces of these places remain.
Perhaps we are fragments of every place we have been, connected by invisible threads of memory, circumstance and chance.
Perhaps home is not somewhere we return to, but something we carry.
Tethered Ground is Woven Garnet's first group exhibition. From the outset, Gabriella and I intended the platform to exhibit artists' work as well as document it. This exhibition is the first realisation of that aim.
We selected the work through an open call and managed every stage of production: artist agreements, the floor plan, the catalogue, promotional material, installation, and a private viewing for collectors and industry guests.
The exhibition occupies a single room across seven walls, with one artist to each section. Works include painting, fumage, photography printed on chiffon, collage, a two and a half metre tapestry, woodcut, and a free-standing plaster sculpture.
The hang was designed so that each artist's idea of home leads into the next as visitors move through the space.
Open call, artist posters and curatorial statement.
Filmed conversation is central to Woven Garnet, so we continued recording during the exhibition, documenting conversations in the gallery alongside the work.
A complete record of the exhibited artists and works, with the floor plan and curatorial statement. 39 pages.
Concept-led projects exploring heritage, gender and power. For most of these I was stylist, art director and photographer, and on several I also modelled.
My final major project and selected essays from London College of Fashion on fashion theory, gender and celebrity. My current writing is published through Woven Garnet's interviews and editorial.
2026. Final major project, BA (Hons) Fashion Styling and Production. Graded A.
A zine and research journal examining South Africa's creative industry, developed from my interviews for Woven Garnet's Volume One. It features South African creatives including the menswear designer Dineo Ramothwala and the artist Chevy Noir, documented through interview and portraiture. The format allows each person to speak in their own words rather than be written about.
The title is drawn from a conversation with Chevy Noir about colour as an act of defiance. The zine was published on the UAL Graduate Showcase and exhibited at the BA26 graduate exhibition.
"They are the colour. The monotony is everything that wants to flatten South Africa into a single story."
at the BA26 graduate exhibition, London College of Fashion
2025
Creative Industries: Theories and Practices
A close reading of three Gucci campaigns shot by Mario Testino in 1995, 1997 and 2003. The essay argues that Tom Ford constructed a masculinity that was simultaneously dominant and feminised, contributing to the emergence of the metrosexual ideal. Drawing on Butler, Entwistle, Bancroft, Edwards, Simpson and Bowstead.
2025
Fashion Aesthetics and the Audience
An analysis of the 1962 Jean Louis dress as it moves from Marilyn Monroe to Kim Kardashian at the 2022 Met Gala, read through the male gaze, parasocial relationships and transcoding. What changes when a fashion artefact crosses sixty years and two eras of fame?
2024
Fashion Cultures and Histories
Tracing androgynous fashion from David Bowie and Yves Saint Laurent, through 1980s punk, Helmut Lang and Madonna, to Hedi Slimane and Alessandro Michele's Gucci. The essay argues that androgynous dress is not simply a trend but a visual language of identity, subculture and resistance.
I was born and raised in Johannesburg, and my family is Italian. Both of these heritages shape my practice, which centres on identity, heritage, feminism and belonging. I often begin with personal and family narratives as a way into wider cultural conversations.
My family is central to my work. My father's office became the set for an editorial, and my Nonna's kitchen table became the starting point for a campaign.
I graduated from London College of Fashion in 2026 with a BA (Hons) in Fashion Styling and Production. I am now developing a practice in fashion journalism and curation, with a focus on South Africa's emerging creative scene, primarily through Woven Garnet.
I am available for fashion writing, editorial, curatorial and creative direction projects.
Fashion communicator, writer, curator.
Woven Garnet, independent creative platform, 2025 to now
Co-founded an independent platform documenting emerging South African artists and designers through interviews, studio photography and video. Produced Volume One, an 18-interview artist series, and edit the interview features and the In Conversation series. Ran our first open call for writing and poetry, which brought in 45 submissions. Began representing artists in October 2026.
Woven Garnet in partnership with OOVOOKOO, Johannesburg, October 2026
Co-curated and produced Woven Garnet's first group exhibition: 17 emerging South African artists exploring home, identity, memory and belonging. Selected work through open submission, drafted artist agreements, planned the hang, led the install, and hosted a private viewing for collectors and industry guests.
Mary Fellowes and GreenWith Studio, March to May 2025
Supported founder Mary Fellowes across research, pitch decks, podcast prep, website content and social media. Organised materials for sustainability-focused fashion initiatives and supported a high-profile celebrity styling project.
Løci, sustainable footwear, 2022 to 2023
Styled remote, studio and on-location shoots. Developed mood boards and lookbooks, sourced garments and coordinated shoot logistics. Work featured on the brand's website and social channels.
London College of Fashion, UAL, 2023 to 2026. Upper Second-Class Honours (2:1)
Final major project: A Colourful Presence in a Monotonous Environment, a zine and research journal documenting seven South African creatives through interviews and portraiture. Published on the UAL Graduate Showcase and exhibited at the BA26 graduate exhibition.
London College of Fashion, UAL, 2022 to 2023
Specialised in Fashion Media. Produced editorial zines and built skills in fashion journalism, photography, creative direction and Adobe Creative Suite.
Crawford College Sandton, South Africa, 2017 to 2021
Four distinctions, including Design. Served as a prefect, organising fundraising and community initiatives.
Writing and editing, interviewing, curation, exhibition production, creative direction, fashion styling, research, photography, social content.
gbmazzottiwork@gmail.com
+44 7355 054 247
+27 82 565 5238
London and Johannesburg
