Wall Street Journal - July 15, 2005
Christopher Cooper, christopher.cooper@wsj.com

The women, most from the surrounding slum of Khayelitsha and all diagnosed with HIV, kept their eyes on their work, filling an order for more than 5,000 beaded lanyards for New York designer Kenneth Cole.

The next hot trend in U.S. charity fashion may come out of this unlikely little workshop where a South African health organization called The Mothers' Programmes is helping to sustain unemployed HIV-infected mothers and their babies. The U.S.-bankrolled endeavor recently launched Mothers Creations, a beading program for the infected women of this miles-long slum, where officials say the unemployment rate hovers at around 90%.

Churning out a variety of accessories, including cellphone pouches, bracelets, lanyards and condom carrying cases, Mothers Creations has netted more than two million rand in profits ($300,000) since it was started in November 2003, charity officials say. The money has enabled some of the 100 or so female workers to purchase homes.

Thanks in part to a former Los Angeles television producer who now heads the group's umbrella organization, Mothers Creations beads are being catapulted into the international fashion scene.

Charity-designed accessories took off last year, when Nike Inc. and the Lance Armstrong Foundation began selling yellow "Livestrong" wristbands to raise money for cancer research. Nike says it has sold more than 50 million bracelets, at $1 apiece.

Capitalizing on that success, Debt, AIDS, Trade, Africa, an awareness organization co-founded by U2 singer Bono, has sold 1.3 million of its white rubber "One" wristbands.

Just as those wristbands have attracted celebrity wearers, Mothers Creations baubles have drawn the attention of a few stars. Sean "P. Diddy" Combs visited the workshop during a recent trip to South Africa, while the organization's Web site shows Beyonce Knowles rifling through a selection of the beaded accessories.

Kenneth Cole discovered them during a visit with his 16-year-old daughter in May to the hospital where the women work. Intrigued by the materials, Mr. Cole sat on the floor with scratch paper and sketched out a few designs for beaded sandals, which the charity says it is now in talks to produce.

While they previously were only sporadically available in the U.S., mostly at charity fund-raisers, the beads now are being adopted by some big companies, too. MTV's retail store in Times Square started carrying Mothers Creations cellphone covers in 2003, but discontinued them this year when the charity stopped selling them on a consignment basis.

Entertainment company Showtime purchased about 1,000 lanyards for a recent event, while Church & Dwight Co.'s Trojan condoms division commissioned 500 condom carrying cases featuring the brand logo in beads, for guests of last October's SHINE awards. The awards are given to entertainment companies that produce shows with responsible programming on sexuality.

On her two-day trip to South Africa this week, the first lady wore a demure beaded Mothers Creations AIDS ribbon to many of the events she attended. Similar pins fetch $2.50 in the U.S.

"You might not know this but all my staff wears your lanyards" for their security badges, she told the six women beading at the hospital she visited in Capetown. The lanyards had been purchased by Mrs. Bush's advance staff.

Among those Mrs. Bush met was Numsa Dzai, a 31-year-old South African woman. Unwed, pregnant and tossed out of the house when her family found out she was infected with HIV, Ms. Dzai nearly died from tuberculosis before she showed up at the Mothers' charity.

Now taking retroviral drugs, Ms. Dzai is healthy, as is her baby, who shows no traces of the disease.

An expert beadworker, Ms. Dzai recently used the proceeds from her work to build a house. "It's a shack house but it's mine," she says. "I have everything now."

The designs aren't expensive, especially considering the time they take to make. A cellphone cover, one of the more elaborate items, costs about $20, and takes about three days to make.

Many commercial craft cooperatives don't pay their workers until items are sold. Workers for Mothers Creations are paid in cash by the charity as soon as they complete an item. The items are then sold locally for the same price as the women are paid.

In the U.S., the charity says it marks up the selling price to account for shipping and overhead costs, with any excess going back into the program. A lanyard that sells for about $7 in Capetown costs $12 in the U.S.

Inventory and marketing duties fall to the charity's staff, and especially to Robin Smalley, the American executive director of the project's umbrella group, the Mothers' Programmes. It was Ms. Smalley, whose television credits include "Lifestyles of the Rich & Famous," who helped put the group together with Kenneth Cole.

Ms. Smalley is now in talks with Bono's AIDS awareness organization. The singer recently contacted Mothers Creations to ask them to design a replacement for the ubiquitous "One" bracelets.

"Obviously we'd love to have such a concrete link to Africa," says Seth Amgott, a spokesman for DATA, which initially obtained its bracelets in Hong Kong and, more recently, in the U.S.

Since the first lady's recent endorsement, Ms. Smalley says she plans to press the White House staff to ink a formal deal with Mothers Creations for more lanyards.

Ms. Smalley says although Mothers Creations workers appreciate the cash the trinkets bring in under the Cole contract, they also aren't beyond feeling the thrill other designers experience.

"The Kenneth Cole contract is great but they're really excited about seeing their lanyards on 5th Avenue," she says.

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John Jurgensen in New York contributed to this article.

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