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Custom-made lights by Wireworld and artwork by Streetwires at the Tapasake Restaurant at the One & Only Le Saint Géran Mauritius. -
Custom-made lights by Wireworld at the Tapasake Restaurant at the One & Only Le Saint Géran Mauritius. -
Indigenus planters at Jumeirah Al Naseem Resort in Dubai. -
Indigenus planters in one of the suites at the Jumeirah Al Naseem Resort in Dubai. -
Artwork created by Wiid Design for rooms in the One & Only Le Saint Géran Mauritius. -
Artwork created by Wiid Design for rooms in the One & Only Le Saint Géran Mauritius. -
Ceramic Matters created sanitary ware for the bathrooms at the One & Only Le Saint Géran Mauritius. -
Sanitary ware by Ceramic Matters. -
Cork room amenities created by Wiid Design. -
Cork room amenities created by Wiid Design. -
Beach bats by Sealand for the One & Only Le Saint Géran Mauritius. -
Custom-made bags by Sealand for the One & Only Le Saint Géran Mauritius.
WORDS Amelia Brown
Natural-born entrepreneur and networker Sean Weldon has been in the furniture and design industry for almost three decades. Here, he shares the exciting opportunities for local design on the African continent.
How did BrandKonnect come about?
BrandKonnect evolved from my experience in my father’s business Innovation, which was the only importer of high-end designer brands from Europe in SA in the ’80s. The business then grew organically by focusing on the corporate sector, and at one stage we were the largest supplier of office furniture to the corporate market.
With the advent of the tourist boom in South Africa, as well as the “coffee culture” infiltration, we shifted our focus to the hospitality market and, over the last 10 years, supplied products for the first Vida e Caffè in Durban to the World Cup Stadiums and the Cape Town International Convention Centre.
Most recently, we have focused our attention on the export market, as well as the growth in the hospitality industry in Africa.
We also worked on the Tapasake Restaurant in Mauritius, which we lit with custom-made lights by Wireworld, and features a beautiful beaded artwork at the entrance, made and painted in SA. How cool?!
We work alongside our business sibling Inova, run by my brother Brent under the umbrella of the Innovation Group, which was founded by our dad in 1974. With offices in Cape Town and London, Inova has long-standing relationships with high-end European brands, such as Arper and Magis, and is able to procure and deliver globally. Together, the partnership enables BrandKonnect to custom-spec a space by sourcing both locally and internationally and answering import and export demands.
Indigenus planters at Jumeirah Al Naseem Resort in Dubai.
Are there any other local brands or designers that you have developed bespoke pieces with?
We have developed bespoke pieces for our various projects in Africa with local brands such as Sealand, Mungo, Wiid Design, Wireworld, Moonbasket, Guideline, Jo Carlin, Illumina and Ceramic Matters. We have even created beautiful artwork with Streetwires for a restaurant project in Mauritius.
Hospitality is volume. We work with a designer or craftsman to create a bespoke piece that suits the project, but could also quite easily work in a retail environment. Then, once the client is happy and we’re in production we get to test the supply chain and the whole process gets the producer fit to produce multiples, which is what’s required for stocking a retailer.
There’s a lot of love and attention that goes into developing something for a project. Take a chair, for example. We could end up doing five samples. The brief may be for only 100 chairs, but now we’ve developed a chair with a designer for a hotel that we can use in other hotels or customised further. In that way, BrandKonnect is developing a portfolio alongside the designer-makers.
Pieces by Moonbasket were used in the rooms at the One & Only Le Saint Géran Mauritius.
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