Export Quality: Tonic’s New Showroom

WORDS Sarah Buitendach PHOTOS Inge Prins

Western Cape fans of much-loved design studio Tonic are in luck – they’ve opened a showroom in Cape Town at last.

Of the many recent Joburg-to-Cape Town semigrants, there is one that will especially thrill any former City of Gold dweller who has transplanted their life to the land of promenade walks and mountain marvelling. Behind the Victorian broekie lace veranda of 87 Kloof Street in Gardens, you’ll find Tonic. The design studio, founded and headed by award-winning Philippe van der Merwe and Greg Gamble, has been a fortress of fine interiors and furnishings in Johannesburg for decades – and now they’ve headed south.

A visit to the new showroom could make anyone feel disgruntled with their own home. Among the trademark sexy sofas, glossy servers, a sophisticated layering of items and materials, an exceptional eye for art and craft, and an always impressive use of colour, there is much to lust after.

“Many of our clients were moving to Cape Town, and we were doing a lot of work there,” Philippe says. “So we were spending more time in the city – but we didn’t have a space to take clients to if, for example, they wanted to try a couch or see something in the flesh.”

During Covid, the duo decided that concentrating on e-commerce, as well as consolidating to have a singular intimate showroom in Joburg with a sibling in Cape Town, seemed a sensible idea. After an extensive search for the ideal spot, this plan has come to fruition in Kloof Street.

“It’s a great space, with a proper old-world retail feel, a big street-facing shopfront, loads of light flooding in, and tons of people going by,” says Greg. “Foreigners walk in and are just so excited to find themselves in a place that sells local design – because that’s what they’re after.”

A collaboration with Stevenson means that the room sets in the Cape Town showroom are also punctuated with exceptional art by the gallery’s artists, including Serge Alain Nitegeka and Thenjiwe Niki Nkosi. It’s a clever, effective teaming up that has made the display spaces particularly engaging.

“We’re so happy to be in Cape Town”, says Philippe. “Our arrival has been well received – everyone seems chuffed to have another little slice of Joburg’s work in the Mother City.” | tonicdesign.co.za

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