After 22 years of living in London, Trevynn McGowan returned to her native South Africa to apply her learnings – and the result has been a boon for the thousands of crafters and designers her company Source represents on the global stage. McGowan was the biggest South African exhibitor at the world’s premier art and design show Maison & Objet in Paris.Her efforts were supported by SAâs own DTI, Cape Craft and Design Institute and the Danish government. She told her fascinating entrepreneurial journey to Biznews.comâs Alec Hogg.She told her fascinating entrepreneurial journey to Biznews.com’s Alec Hogg.
Alec is at Maison & Objet in Paris with Trevynn McGowan, a little bit of South Africa that is shown in this huge exhibition. Trevynn, what brought you here?
Weâve been exporting South African design for 14 years to the top retailers around the world and weâve never been to Paris. We exhibit in other cities and America predominantly but this is our first time to Paris.
You say âWeâ.
My company is Source and we are actually within the master group, which is the Guild group, we have 12 different platforms that promote, develop, export, and sell South African design globally.
It looks like the art is not factory manufactured, how do you source it?
Everything South African is handmade and generally is made by the artist themselves, the name of the brand and I think thatâs what makes South African products unique is that itâs not mass-produced, itsâ not in a factory somewhere, it is a real hand-crafted artisanal piece of art.
How has the reception been given that this is the first time youâve been in Paris?
I think whatâs great is that over those 14 years weâve really established a strong reputation, so we have clients from America and from England who know us well and we see them a couple of times a year anyway. Therefore, we don’t quite have the same thing as a complete newbie, but what is great is that weâre reaching into Europe as far as Russia and Asia for new clients, but with the pedigree and the heritage that weâve established.
You seem to have a very large stand here, how many square metres is it?
We have 100 square metres for our own booth, for Source, representing 24 South African companies; we also have the adjacent 60 square metres for Design Network Africa, which is a programme that we orchestrate for the Danish government.
There must be hundreds of exhibitors here, how do you stand out?
I think by that point of difference of the narrative, the authenticity, the hand-crafted nature of the work that we do, so whilst weâre in the best hall Iâm so proud to say our product and our presentation is very, very different, itâs very soulful, itâs organic, itâs meaningful and it has narrative.
Help me out here, you have small artists or small entrepreneurs in various parts of South Africa, a couple dozen of them, how do they find you to get their products here exposed to the European market?
We have on our database, over 300 South African design companies and over the years weâve been working, we export to Conran Shops, Anthropology, ABC Carpet, West Elm, Restoration Hardware, Jamie Oliver, Levities, but we basically are the biggest suppliers of South Africa design around the world. We know pretty much everybody whoâs out there and we select from those, the best people and the people that are most appropriate for the market weâre selling to.
Whatâs your story, where did you come from, and how did you get into this?
Iâm from Johannesburg. I went to live in London for 22 years and started a design and architectural practice. Then when I moved back to South Africa in 2003, I had this perfect mix of knowing what the international market needed and knowing how much richness and the wealth of opportunity there was for the design industry in South Africa and weâve been very instrumental in shaping, maturing, and propelling the industry to what it is now.
How many people do you think are employed through these efforts of yours?
Goodness, thousands, I mean we really do, we exhibit, and weâre going to represent South Africa at the London Design Biennale at Somerset House. We just had a solo show in New York at the top design gallery in America. Weâre going to Design Miami in December, weâre going to a solo in New York in January, and so through all of these different platforms and efforts and collaborations, thousands and thousands of people are a part of it.
Was anyone doing this before you?
No one was exporting SA design product to the extent that we are doing now. But the Cape Craft and Design Institute, with whom we partnered for the Maison & Objet show, has been doing trade fairs such as this for many years, supporting local industry growth, so itâs been important to learn from them.
Does the government help you much?
Yes, they do, absolutely. We are supported in our efforts here by the DTI and weâve done, I think this is the 14th programme in various ways that weâve done with the government, so weâre very, very grateful for their support and their vision.
Itâs good to know where the employment is being supported, but how does it actually work with people coming past you, seeing your products, do they get attracted by a particular piece and then buy lots of them, or how does the whole process go?
Some people really only want one particular brand, for instance Wonky Ware or Ngwenya Glass, others are very grateful that thereâs an assortment of 24 different suppliers across 13 different categories to choose from and they might come and they might place an enormous order here or we might just get their details and hound them for the next two years until we secure them. Generally what happens is that the relationships that we establish, they stay with us and we build on those relationships, we facilitate the changes so that itâs seasonal trends and we develop new products and steer our designers into what is needed internationally.
When you say âtheyâ, who are âtheyâ who buys, who is the buyer?
The actual buyers from those stores that I mentioned, the Conran Shop was here this morning and theyâre coming out to South Africa in October. We have nine, ten buyers from a company at a time will come to South Africa, and weâll spend ten days taking them all around visiting eight to ten producers a day and ensuring that they get a real understanding of whatâs on offer.
With the weakness of the Rand, is that making South African products more appealing or is this a price insensitive product?
From 2000 we went from R20 to the Pound, we slowed all the way down to nine, then we went back up to 24 and then we went down to 15 and now weâre at 18, so the real strength is being able to ride those fluctuations because yes of course when the Rand is weak, itâs much better for us, but in three to four to five months, who thought Brexit was going to collapse the Pound from R24 to R16 in the space of a few weeks. It really is a difficult thing to tend with, but itâs something that weâve done from the outset.
It doesnât look like the products that you have here are actually priced cheaply; they seem to be more art pieces than necessarily mass-produced.
Absolutely, they are all handmade, theyâre limited in their nature because there is only so much that can be made and even the factories that do expand and increase their productivity, they will never be a mass produced factory. Therefore, after spending many years trying to fight that price war, I realise that no, a BMW and a Mercedes is what it is because of what it is and when people understand the value that theyâre getting it just takes a little bit of time. We are fully supportive of our artisans and our studios, we know the work that goes into it and weâre prepared to present the pricing unashamedly.
Where would you find these bowls for instance ending up, in what kind of homes around the world?
People who care about the world, people who are interested in buying things that will last and that they want to hand on to their children that will have associated memories with that piece. Rather than just oh, thereâs the next crockery range and that breaks and then letâs just buy another one and it moves in and out, so that your dinner becomes a ceremony every night at dinner. You put out the plates that you love like your great grandmother would have done and then your children take those pieces on and those are the kind of customers that weâre after and the kind of retailers that have the same values.
That would be at the upper end of the market.
Yes, absolutely, unfortunately that is just where weâre at. That doesnât mean that we donât sell pieces that are R20, but it goes all the way up in the sliding scale so that our limited edition, collectable design market might sell something for R800 000. It doesnât matter to me what the piece is or what the price is, what matters is the authenticity of the product, the uniqueness, and the beauty of the object.
Itâs a lovely story. What are you hoping when you leave here, at the end of this show, to have achieved?
I would have liked to introduce South African product to a completely new audience, I would have liked to have reached departments stores in countries and boutiques and architects and specifiers in places that we just havenât had the ability to access before and to go away. Itâs not even that important to me the sales that we make in the next four days. Whatâs much more important is the relationships that weâve started to build.
Youâve then started looking for, presumably new relationships with new artists in South Africa that you could sell still further?
Yes, thatâs ongoing and itâs really important. In our Southern Guild Gallery in Woodstock, weâve invited 44 young designers who have never exhibited with Southern Guild before to submit work and itâs been a fantastically successful exhibition. Weâre all about the next generation and building growth. We run a programme called Business of Design, which is just to teach young entrepreneurs to take that leap and to take their business to the next level.
