Retailer Profile: Weylandts

We often feature designers and manufacturers, but we haven’t featured many retailers, so when we came across the South African retail store Weylandts, we knew we had to let the Contemporist crowd know about them.

Weylandts is a chain of home furnishing stores with 5 locations in South Africa who focus on a fusion of contemporary and traditional design, with a modern ethnic flavour. It all started in 1964 with Edgar Weylandts, who opened a furniture store in Windhoek, Namibia, it was also the year that his son, Chris, was born. Fast forward to 1990, Chris was living in South Africa and was on his way to Europe with a quick stop in Namibia to visit his family. That short stop turned into a 5 year detour with Chris learning all aspects of the family business and in 1992 Chris and his brother Thomas bought a small manufacturing plant in Okahandja, Namibia to meet the demands for the Windhoek shop as well as to export the furniture to South Africa.

In the late 1990’s, Chris set up another plant in South Africa to meet supply and demand and to create a new line of furniture. It was also time to expand, so Chris went on a trip to Indonesia to source furniture makers that would work with him in creating unique pieces for Weylandts.

A year or so later, Chris decided to take it to the next level when he opened the first Weylandts store in Durbanville. Since then he has opened another four retail locations that all offer an in-store café and crèche for kids. The Weylandts brand has sponsored reality tv shows like The Block and Big Brother. They have also become the sole distributor of Kenneth Cobonpue furniture throughout South Africa.

Unfortunately, they don’t offer online ordering yet, but be sure to check them out because they really have an impressive collection of contemporary furnishings.

Visit the Weylandts website ? here.

Weylandts