CURIOUSER & CURIOUSER

Walking into coiffeur and collector Wim van Zyl’s home in Observatory, Cape Town, is like falling down the rabbit hole and landing in a world of fantastical wonder, nostalgia and childlike curiosity

- MARNUS NIEUWOUDT

WHAT IS YOUR INSPIRATION for this extraordinary interior?

Wim van Zyl: In everything I do, I consistently seek a sense of completion. I love that feeling and the metaphysical cadence of finishing something. I have been a collector my entire life, which is paradoxical to that pursuit of completion because that has been – and continues to be – an ongoing, creative pursuit.

All the items assembled across my house were collected over forty-eight years. Because all my energy is contained in the assemblages I surround myself with, the house represents forty-eight years of collection, along with forty-eight years of personal growth, anguish, struggle, success, and evolution as a human being.

So, this sense of putting objects together to form a singular assemblage is also very emotionally cathartic for me and, in collecting the objects now assembled throughout the interior, it became a culmination of disparate memories and experiences that I have collected over different phases of my life. My inspiration is the objects – I like to read objects, both visually and energetically.

How does it all come together?