Meet the Makers - Chile Co produces beautiful sustainable homeware for our omni-channel store.

Meet the Makers – Chile Co produces beautiful sustainable homeware for our omni-channel store.

This is the second in a series of articles introducing the Boschendal community to some of the extraordinary makers that provide their beautifully crafted sustainable homeware to the newly-launched Boschendal omni-channel store.

Boschendal represents a vital part of South Africa's rich cultural heritage and plays an invaluable role in supporting the surrounding community. As a business, we pride ourselves on living the values of sustainability and community in everything we do.

For one of the amazing makers that contribute beautiful sustainable homeware to our omni-channel store, the opportunity to work together was also a chance to bring these shared values to life.

History & Sustainability

"Boschendal is an important part of our history that should be conserved and protected," says James Dumbrill, owner of Chile Co. "Their commitment to sustainability resonate with our own values, and so when the opportunity presented itself, we jumped at the chance to collaborate."

Chile is perhaps one of the Boschendal store's best-kept secrets.

"We have no website or social media profiles for the business, instead choosing to focus on developing beautiful natural fabrics and turning those into stunning home wear for our clients, including Boschendal," explains Dumbrill. "As a business we take great care with the products we supply, and want that to translate through to the experience when a customer purchases any of our products through the Boschendal store."

Classic Style, Finest Natural Ingredients

Chile Co was founded by the Dumbrill family in 1996 with a mission to create beautiful, classic products using the finest natural ingredients. The company has a strong focus on sustainability, and as a result produces no fast fashion.

"We try to source most of our fabrics locally, which is important to us as we feel strongly that all local businesses should support each other as far as possible. It would be easy to simply import all our fabrics, but instead we work closely with a local mill based in the Western Cape to design and develop the beautiful fabrics that you’ll see in the Boschendal store."

James employs seven people who work at the design centre, where new garments and homeware items are developed. Chile also supports two small garment factories in Cape Town that employ 18 seamstresses, who are tasked with creating most of the business' products.

Community, Sustainability and Supporting Local Businesses

This focus on supporting local businesses and the commitment to sustainability were part of the attraction to working with Boschendal. James explains: "Boschendal actively brings these values of community, sustainability and supporting local businesses to life in everything it does, which is really exciting to us.”