About Us

Spaza pronounced (spaw-za) is a South African word for a small informal store selling everyday essentials usually from someone’s home.

Our store in The Watershed V & A Waterfront Cape Town, South Africa
Spaza products are developed by Canadian designer, Julia Schaffer who spent 26 years living in South Africa with her South African husband and two children. With a fashion design background, Julia started designing products for her eco-conscious lifestyle and employed other mothers and caregivers to make them in their homes. To suit the domestic production of the products, Julia hand carved stamps to create the prints. In 2012 SpaZa’s Etsy store was launched and in 2013 SpaZa’s flagship store opened in Cape Town’s V and A Waterfront.

 Julia returned to Canada with her family in 2020, eventually settling in Cumberland on Vancouver Island and launching this website catering specifically to her local community and Canadian supporters.

 A passionate team in South Africa supports several community-based and homebased groups of artisans and over sees the distribution of SpaZa products to the USA and United Kingdom.

 In response to the alarming rate of unemployment  amongst youth in South Africa, Halo Dish Covers was born in 2020 to provide work experience for design students in South Africa.

 Proudly members of the Fair Trade Federation, SpaZa create sustainable business and employment opportunities for South Africans living in difficult situations while brightening the world with beautiful well-functioning products that make people happy.

Watch our latest video with Brand Manager Tess Birch.