At Design Indaba’s 25th edition, Fashion designer Bas Timmer delivered one of the conference’s most emotionally charged talks, a presentation that demonstrated how design can provide warmth, dignity and shelter for the vulnerable. His project, the Sheltersuit, is a wearable shelter designed for people experiencing homelessness: a waterproof, windproof jacket that transforms into a sleeping bag, offering protection against extreme conditions.
After experiencing the death of a friend’s father from hypothermia while living on the streets, Timmer redirected his fashion career toward creating something purposeful, a design that could prevent such loss from happening again. Sheltersuit has become a comforting lifeline.
What makes the Sheltersuit powerful is both its functionality and system. Produced from upcycled materials and manufactured in social workshops employing refugees and vulnerable communities, the project embeds dignity and opportunity into every stage of its lifecycle.
At Design Indaba, Timmer extended this thinking to a local context with the launch of the Shelterbag, a lighter, climate-appropriate version developed specifically for South Africa’s conditions. The initiative mobilised sponsors and audiences alike, resulting in the funding and distribution of Shelterbags to people living on the streets.
Bas Timmer’s design message is profound: design should solve real problems, with care and dignity, and not hypothetically but immediately and at scale. As Timmer expresses, great design has the power to make the world a little warmer.
