Cara Saven Wall Design has answered the call to print their bespoke murals on decor items. Christi Nortier sat down with its founder, Cara Saven, to chat about creativity in business, South Africa’s design scene and her own style at home.
“I am not artistic,” admits Cara Saven. “But I’ve got a creative streak. I can see what’s good and what works, but don’t ask me to create from scratch. I can choose what works for what I think a bigger audience might want.” And the proof is in her bespoke wallpaper business, Cara Saven Wall Design, which will celebrate its 19th anniversary in 2025. With branches in four global regions, it’s taking South African design to new heights. Ever the entrepreneur, the business has branched out into bold table linen and wall hangings, with their eyes set on bespoke upholstery fabric this year. We sat down with Cara in front of her bold botanical and canary yellow fireplace for a catch-up.
How did you get your start in the wallpaper business?
I guess everything I’ve done has been a stepping stone towards this. I worked as retail buyer for Woolworths, twice, with a stint in between working as a management consultant in the UK, which taught me what I don’t want to do. When I had my first child, I absolutely assumed that I was going back as a full-time working mom and would be able to do the juggle. I held onto this baby, and there was just no way that I could.
So, I gave up my job very reluctantly because I really loved it. I looked at my skillset and the only thing I could vaguely do was take photographs. So, I picked up a camera in 2006, went up to corporates and pitched to them to take art images of what they did. I’d go into factories and production centres to take artistic photos, which they would then put up in their boardrooms and offices. Soon I started doing the printing and framing for them. That’s when I came across large-scale printing, which was wallpaper. At the time, it was only being used in a commercial way. I saw the gap and started building up a library of stock images, like the Eiffel Tower and forests.
What has it been like to watch your business expand overseas?
What I love the most about it is how they deal with the customer base there: They deal with all the difficult stuff of running a business. We get to do the fun part, which is design in South Africa, send it across and see the installation. It’s a total joy. My design team here is juggling jobs from South Africa, India, USA, Australia and Singapore every single day.
Because of the business model, the design is sent at the click of a button to a printer overseas and they print there – it’s a quick and seamless process. There’s no shipping or something getting lost or damaged. I’m all about speed! Everything I do is about how quickly we can do this while maintaining the highest level of quality.
Has there been an international project that stood out for you?
Through our Dutch partners, we were part of transforming an ancient Austrian rotunda. It has a massive, fluted ceiling that we designed wallpaper for. It had to be designed like pieces of a pie and fit together like a puzzle. Those guys had to lie on their backs for two or three days, putting it together like a Michelangelo ceiling. The entire ceiling became a botanical wonder. It was magical to have seen it come to life across six or seven months with my design team, sitting on Zoom calls with the Austrian developers saying: `move this here and that there’. We’ve done a lot of beautiful installations and high-end hotels, but that’s the one that stands out in terms of a visual for me and the impact it has on you.
You often collaborate with artists to create new designs. Why is this an important aspect of the business for you?
There are a number of reasons, one of which is personal. I went to the University of Cape Town’s Michaelis School of Fine Art after I matriculated and after a year and a half, I realised I was not an artist. It’s not that I thought I wasn’t good enough, but I realised my mentality was too business oriented. I was somebody that needed to receive a reward for my input. I’m a creative businessperson, but I’m not an artist.
So, I left that world behind knowing that it was not for me, but it’s come full circle in being able to give those artists an opportunity to make money for their work. My favourite time of the month is to pay our artists. I love the fact that they have got annuity income for work that they’ve done. We get to transform the art that they’ve already done into another version of that art, which makes money for them while they sleep.
The second thing is that our clients love it. With the advent of AI now, you could create anything. But going back to the original source of a beautiful piece of art (seeing the brush strokes on the wall that an artist has sat and thought about, the painstaking work done on it, that they had a reason for doing it), is a way more authentic and almost more valuable thing.
How would you describe your own taste?
Eclectic and vintage with unconventional art and colour, colour, colour! I like minimalism in my bedroom and maximalism outside of it, which I think very much describes me as a person. I come across as very extroverted and very comfortable on a stage, in a crowd and talking to anybody. But actually, I need my solitude. I need to climb a mountain by myself and have down time to just be.
What inspired the start of CS4D?
Again, it was business and creativity. The business had stayed completely niche and had cornered that market. I wondered how we could take it into a product line that still has the same values – large scale, impactful and a conversation piece. Of course it had to be tables. I wanted to have products that didn’t have to go through my design team and that could go into this beautiful e-commerce process. Wallpaper is not an e-commerce product since it’s so high-end. We wanted to be in stores, so people could encounter our brand. I also wasn’t finding any interesting tableware for my 12-seater table, so if I was looking then other people would be too.
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What makes you excited about the future of South Africa’s design scene?
Because I’ve travelled a lot and because I have businesses in other countries, I can see that Cape Town is leaps and bounds ahead of the rest of the world. We are one of the leaders of design in the world. Non-negotiable. The world has started to see that and they’re coming here for inspiration. And it’s not surprising because of the level of creativity that we’ve got here.
What’s a trend you can appreciate and one you wish would pass?
What I absolutely love right now is a room-wrap, with the same wallpaper on the walls and ceilings to create a cocoon-like space. I grew up in the Biggie Best era, and my room showcased this to the max. I’m so nostalgic seeing that coming back and people immersing themselves in one design.
There isn’t a trend I wish would pass. I don’t have any problem with people having supposed “bad taste”. Who am I to judge if it makes you happy?
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What’s next for the business and for you?
I think as an entrepreneur, you spend every single day wondering by how much you still want to grow the business or if you’re satisfied with the way that it is. One’s greatest dilemma as a business owner is how much one wants to grow versus the risks involved in growing, but one always wants to be better than one was last year so that dichotomy is always at play.
In terms of the overseas businesses, I would say I would be very happy to only take on one or two more regions and grow what we already have. Personally, I’m looking forward to finishing my MBA in May 2025. We’re launching a range of custom fabrics this year. People have been asking for it for years, and with the maximalism trend it’s the next logical step for us.
The future is so bright for entrepreneurs and especially women entrepreneurs. I hope that they believe that they can do it if they have a product they believe in. If I could juggle building this business while being a mom and giving it more time as she grew up, then they can also do it.
By: Christi Nortier
Photography by: Alix-rose Cowie, Karl Rogers
Text courtesy of Livingspace magazine
