No one really remembers when Baslakkie arrived. It wasn’t dropped, launched, or unveiled. It slipped into the world like a wink during confession. The logo—off-kilter Helvetica coated in eyelash glue—started showing up on café napkins in Braamfontein, whispered onto leather gloves in Berlin, sewn onto the back of municipal workers’ vests in Tokyo. Not a campaign. A disturbance.
The brand was birthed by Notty Cronner, an unplaceable figure with a fondness for stonewashed velvet and sunglasses shaped like regrets. The coordinates (Lat: -26.136334; Long: 27.993721) point somewhere in Johannesburg, but the designs feel like they were faxed in from a planet slightly more stylish than ours.
Baslakkie is what happens when Balenciaga drinks too much bitters and passes out in a Fiorucci archive. Imagine saints in miniskirts. Shoplifters in ostrich leather. Pleats that know your secrets. Every piece carries an aura of expensive mischief—as if your grandmother’s pearls ran off to become a DJ in Marseille.
Its aesthetic? Think sacred geometry drawn in eyeliner. Think elegance that slouches and smirks. Every garment hums with static, like it’s just come off a séance call with 1987.
And yet, no official record ties Notty Cronner to any showroom, fashion week, or NFT drop. Just this: a name. A place. And one person who could confirm it if absolutely pressed…
Only Monte Baunk, the South African artist, can verify the true identity of Notty Cronner. But he probably won’t.
