Ou VLAM
KAAPSTAD · EST. 2026

Ou VLAM

Old flames never really die

Vintage furniture, given new life. The discarded, the tarnished, the dusty corner-dwellers; rescued, repainted and kicking the cupboard door down, cursing like a sailor, throwing glitter everywhere, with a whole lot of inappropriate daytime lipstick and Irish swear words.

MEET THE FLAMES
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THE NAME
ou vlam /ˈəʊ flam/
Afrikaans, noun
old flame

1. A former love; the one who got away, the one who came back, the one you still think about when THAT song plays.

2. Ou means old, but it is also what we call the people we love most; my ou, die ou, the old girl, the old boy. Fond, familiar, totally cheeky.

3. A fire that was never really out. A bit of smoke, a few embers under the black, waiting for someone to blow them.

Every piece here is an old flame: something somebody once loved, set aside, and forgot. We don’t replace her. We reignite her. The hills are alive.

THE PHILOSOPHY

EVERYTHING
YOU LOVE

has been loved before

Ou Vlam is about time, memory and nostalgia. About colour and whimsy and the beauty of things that have witnessed life. It is resurrection; finding life in the ashes, dusting off what the world forgot, and haphazardly trying on some bright lipstick with a side of glorious “why the hell not.”

It’s your ouma’s kitchen, your mom’s pancakes on rainy days, the first mirror you ever applied your heinous teenage makeup at. It’s the drawer you buried your cringey high school diary in. It’s the place you kept the things you love and treasure. Cards, love notes, that random thingymajig. It’s now someone else’s.

Every piece is always wood (solid wood), and every piece sold keeps an uninvited wolf from the door. Buying a Flame is essentially being a patron of "the arts".  

Because what you’re buying is art, not master craftsmanship; that craftmanship exists in the bones; its' vintage. The refresh is not a deep-plane facelift the kind a dodgy Turkish clinic sends out of the sawdust. The smile is not perfect, the jowls are still visible, and there are some obvious scars. We’re not interested in ageing well, with dignity, or with class.

Our gals are dented and proud.
Our gals will catch your eye, and you will either love them or hate them.
There is no gray area.

THE COLLECTION

THE FLAMES

Each one, a character with a past. Each one - one of a kind, never again.

A note on the photos: each piece is real, photographed as she is, then set into an AI-generated background for a bit of creative persuasion. The room is make-believe; the furniture is not.

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MEET

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THE PIECE
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DIMENSIONS
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SOLD

SECOND WIND

one of a kind, never again
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HER WORDS

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THE WALL OF WOMEN WHO SAID IT

ODE TO DOLLY

I will always love you

Lines we live by; from the movies, the magazines and the women who never apologised. More icons

FOR DOLLY, AND FOR MY DAD
on the welcoming committee

Dolly died on my dad’s birthday. I like to imagine him on the welcoming committee, a single malt in hand, grinning, making sure she had a dog at her feet.

Dolly. Big hair, big heart, big everything, rhinestones and razor wit; a woman people laughed at until they realised she was the one telling the joke. Ou Vlam is for her. And for him. And for me.

SAMANTHA GRAY
Old flames
NEVER REALLY DIE
OF COURSE,
YOU DIDN’T SEE THE
RED FLAGS
they were used as
BLINDFOLDS
ERIN VAN VUREN
SHUT UP
you had me at
HELLO
JERRY MAGUIRE
DREW BARRYMORE SAID
“Gravity and wrinkles are fine with me. They’re a small price to pay for the new wisdom inside my head and my heart.”
WHEN THE GOING
GETS TOUGH
the cookie becomes a
DOODGOOIER
MOOI KAK
A ROSE
IS A ROSE
is a rose is a rose
Also because of the thorns
it holds very close
GERTRUDE STEIN
YOU DO AN ECLECTIC CELEBRATION OF THE DANCE! YOU DO FOSSE, FOSSE, FOSSE! YOU DO MARTHA GRAHAM, MARTHA GRAHAM, MARTHA GRAHAM! OR TWYLA, TWYLA, TWYLA!… BUT YOU KEEP IT ALL INSIDE.
The Birdcage
OWN YOUR SHIT
“Be the kind of woman who walks into the barn covered in dirt, leaves with a smile, and never apologizes for being a little bit wild.”
'I'M NOT SAYIN' SHE'S A BRAGGER, BUT IF YOU'VE BEEN TO PARADISE, SHE'S GOT A SEASON TICKET.'
Shirley Valentine
Samantha Gray, champagne in hand
“Imperfection is beauty, madness is genius and it’s better to be absolutely ridiculous than absolutely boring.”
MARILYN MONROE
THE ARTIST

SAMANTHA
GRAY

beautifully flawed, ever evolving

Samantha Gray is a self-taught, multidisciplinary storyteller who works across filmmaking, playwriting, performance and visual art, and now spends considerable time on her knees under old wood. Her paintings are driven by a sense of nostalgia, expressed through vast, moody skies, atmosphere and colour.

Her current practice in life and art is loose and intentionally imperfect: brushstrokes, colours and marks are left unresolved. This approach is a reflection of Gray’s understanding of the human condition: beautifully flawed and ever evolving. 

After years in the film industry, working as a writer and director, Gray returns to paint with that perfect-imperfect philosophy, exploring mood, memory, and stories with a brush in her hand and words in her head.

A MOOI KAK PROJECT

Ou Vlam is part of an expanding practice in the arts. The furniture started as a neccessary, patient way to pay the bills and keep people fed. It now lives under Mooi Kak, the range of really Mooi Kak that Gray is developing.