We have seen the skull trend pick up steam in the last year or two. Now, this trend is an acquired taste and not for the faint of heart… some might find it a tad creepy, but there is something mysterious and fascinatingly pretty about these skulls. Here is some of our favourite local skull designs – I especially like the vintage-looking ones…

Love this kick-ass pipe-smoking vintage skull scatter cushion by Number 19. The design is called “Handsome Portrait” and it’s silkscreened onto an off-white linen cushion cover. The same design has also been used as a limited edition print – silkscreened onto old book paper. Both these are available online through Hello Pretty.

Sobeit Studio is skull décor Promised Land – in fact, the have a whole range called, The Skullery! They have an awesome collection of skull candles in various colours – just imagine how super cool it must look when the heat of the flame starts melting the skull… Or how about adding a touch of glam with those metallized skulls, available in copper, gold & chrome – it looks totally gangster!

The Mrs Ples fabric design forms part of Design Team‘s brand spanking new collection called, African Archive. The design features awesome anatomy sketches that look as if they just fell out of the pages of a vintage medical journal.

Carved out of Jakaranda wood by Friday Jibu, the amount of work that went in these carved timber animal skulls is just amazing! The skulls are available from Bronze Age art gallery in the Foundry.

We have featured the magical work of Nicola de Jager of Calavera before and every time I totally stumped by the magnificent attention to detail (seriously, images don’t do it justice, you have to see it in the flesh). She hand embroiders every Dia de los Muertos skull (or Calavera as they are also known) by hand. Breath-taking.

Check out these super cool skull light boxes by talented Durban illustrator, Colwyn Thomas. The light-emitting skulls are cleverly made-up out of a tangle of either butterflies, koi fish or doves.