46—MARYLEBONE JOURNAL
STYLE
CAPE CRUSADERS
Mark Riddaway meets Jane Buckley, a woman who gave up a life of leisure to bring the unique furniture of Muralto all the way from Cape Town to Marylebone
For most people, the idea of retiring while still in the prime of life and heading off to the south of France to wile away the long days basking in Mediterranean sunshine would be an appealing one. But Jane Buckley clearly isn’t most people. “Three years ago, my husband
retired, so I gave up my job and we moved to Nice,” she says. “It was lovely at first, but pretty soon it started to do my head in. There’s only a certain amount of rosé you can drink. I was doing damage to my liver and getting a bit bored. I really missed working.” Being an adventurous soul as
well as a restless grafter, she decided that rather than returning to her highly successful previous life in the banking sector, she would strike out in an entirely new direction by opening a furniture business. “This time last year I knew nothing about furniture except what I’d picked up from magazines” she says with a bemused laugh, as we sit among the beautiful modernist pieces on display in her new Marylebone shop, Muralto. But although she was no furniture expert herself, she knew a man who most assuredly was. Jane’s uncle is Rene Haas, a
renowned designer and manufacturer of contemporary furniture, based in Cape Town, South Africa. “He’s
Swiss,” she says. “He moved to South Africa around 40 years ago and began designing and making furniture there. He learned the trade in Zurich, then got on a boat and started a whole new life in Cape Town. He met my aunt, and they built the business up.” Rene’s business, which he
named Muralto after the region of Switzerland where he had been brought up, flourished. “They opened a couple of retail outlets – they design, manufacture and sell the furniture, which is unusual in this day and age.” But despite its enviable reputation for clean design and expert craftsmanship, his furniture was only really being sold in South Africa. After Jane and her husband John paid him a visit, they began to wonder how Rene’s furniture could find the wider audience it deserved. “We just thought it had real potential for an international market. I took this leap of faith, and here we are.” South Africa might not be the most
obvious source of great modernist furniture, but Jane insists that its credentials shouldn’t be overlooked. “When you think about South African furniture you probably think of dark wood and carvings, but there’s actually some real craftsmanship there, and they make some amazing furniture. Some of the
architecture, especially in Cape Town, is ultra-modern, very contemporary, absolutely stunning, and Muralto is a perfect reflection of that.” One of the great benefits of
the business is the level of control provided by Rene’s own factory. This dovetails perfectly with Jane’s philosophy of customer service. “It’s having that end-to-end set-up that gives us the edge in giving our customers exactly what they want,” she says. Like that sofa, but need it to be six inches shorter? Not a problem – they’ll get one made that’s six inches shorter. Keen on that chair but the colour doesn’t match your walls? Fine – just tell them what colour you’re after. Browsing the Marylebone showroom is the start of the process, not the end. This flexibility reached its apogee
before Christmas when a businessman came into the shop to buy a painting – one of the many striking artworks by a young South African artist sold exclusively by Muralto. “He was going
LINKS
Muralto 6 Seymour Place 020 7724 3750
muralto.co.uk
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