unknown — the enterprise-derived English name Coral Stephens is the primary documented identifier for this specific tradition
The hand-spinning, carding, dyeing, and weaving of mohair -- fiber from angora goats -- into fine curtains, blankets, carpets, and fabrics at Piggs Peak, northern Eswatini, a craft tradition founded in 1949 by Coral Stephens (born 1902, Pretoria, South Africa) and sustained continuously across four generations of her family. Stephens moved to Piggs Peak with her husband Bob, involved in establishing the region's commercial forestry industry, and initially sought only to recreate a simple handwoven chalk (undyed) mohair cloth for curtaining her new home; with the direct assistance of Sylvia Mantanga, a Xhosa woman trained in weaving by Swedish missionaries at St Cuthbert's Missionary school in the Transkei -- itself situated within a region of burgeoning angora goat farming -- Stephens began weaving, and admiring visitors' orders unintentionally launched a commercial enterprise. Stephens subsequently developed her own distinctive design language, experimenting extensively with color and texture, and her work attracted the direct collaborative attention of renowned American textile designer Jack Lenor Larsen, with whom she worked on commissioned collections over several years; her fabrics have since furnished private homes, hotels, and theaters worldwide. The complete production process, known within the workshop as 'the big circle,' remains entirely hand-executed: teams of local women spin and card raw mohair, dye the yarn, weave it into finished curtains and carpets, and complete each piece with meticulous hand-finishing, with the enterprise today employing more than 50 women across every stage of production. Following Coral Stephens's own leadership, her daughter Marguerite 'Mags' Stephens learned the craft directly from her mother and went on to found a related, separately branded venture, Stephens Tapestry Studio, extending the family's textile practice into fine-art tapestry collaboration with prominent South African artists; the original Coral Stephens enterprise itself passed to Coral's granddaughter-in-law, Murrae Stephens, who assumed leadership in 2001 and continues to balance inherited tradition with new creative collaboration.
Risk level: Vulnerable · Not independently inscribed
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