Uganda’s Rose & Fitzgerald Design Studio
Home goods and jewelry crafted from native materials by local artisans
We were first introduced to Uganda-based houseware and jewelry design team Rose & Fitzgerald through their collaborative project with socially conscious design house The Citizenry. Delving deeper into their work, we discovered an array of beautiful, informed items crafted from local natural materials. Speaking with co-founder and designer Courtney Rose, it became evident that Rose & Fitzgerald’s work is truly one-of-a-kind, in that it was born from a need first and foremost.
Rose and her husband Laren Fitzgerald moved to Kampala, Uganda from California about two and a half years ago, as Fitzgerald had long been involved in humanitarian efforts focused on Central and East Africa, and they moved to be closer. In what Rose describes as “actually a pretty organic process,” Rose & Fitzgerald started shortly thereafter. “We were trying to decorate our home and found there wasn’t a ton of high design products,” she tells CH. “There were a lot of craft items. Really, this began out of a need for decorating our space, so I started designing a few pieces for myself.”
Between a new world of inspiration and easily integrating into a community of artisans, Rose began to “design purely from need, while making something beautiful and unique. I would spend time in local markets and carpentry workshops and show my designs to different artisans and what they came back with was far more beautiful than what I expected.” She cites the landscape as a primary inspiration, however, the materials themselves lend an extra edge. From the range of beautiful wood, metals (such as brass and copper) and even cow-horn, Rose marries nature with modernity. Everything is made from start-to-finish by the same master craftspeople in Kampala—and is done so ethically. There’s a good balance of form and function to every item. Everything from the cow-horn whiskey tumblers to the Dipper Cocktail Muddler, from locally sourced Mugavu wood, looks as beautiful as it is inspired.
Shop the Rose & Fitzgerald offerings online, which can be shipped globally.
Images courtesy of Rose & Fitzgerald
