What’s in a name…perhaps a bit of magic?
The name “Naartjie” (pronounced nar chee) is an Afrikaans word for “a small, sweet citrus fruit found in Africa”. For the Naartjie Brand it is also synonymous for a “distinctive, affordable, naturally soft, functional, kid-friendly clothing brand”. In November of 1992 Naartjie opened its first store in the new Victoria Wharf Shopping Center in the V&A Waterfront in Cape Town, South Africa. A tall standing vase filled with branches of tiny naartjies stood guarding the doorway when the shop opened. These had been cut from a “lemon” tree growing in the founders’ back garden. This little tree, in spite of regularly being watered and talked to, had struggled to grow. An attempt to graft a shoot from good lemon stock onto it had almost caused it to “give up the ghost”. After rejecting this graft the little tree had to be cut back to save it. It struggled in its little corner of the back garden, overlooked for months and years as everything else grew up around it. Then in the spring of 1992 i
