Born on the tiny island of Curacau, off the coast of Venezuela, Wendy Visser is a fashion blueblood.

The daughter of one of the designers to the Queen of Holland, Wendy was discovered at 18 while living in Amsterdam and soon she was signed to the Elite Agency and worked between Paris, Tokyo, and Milan. During her 12-year career she was featured, among many others, in French Elle, Italian Vogue, and Marie Claire along with walking for many of Europe’s top designers.

It was in 1998, while shooting in Cape Town, that Wendy and her husband, interior designer Adam Court, took a trip up to the Zulu lands of Kwazulu-Natal. Here, far from the bright city lights, she discovered the abundance of craft and beadwork, all made with patience and painstaking attention to detail, that had escaped the eyes of Western fashion.

So inspired by the history, the skill, and the aesthetics of the Zulu women’s work, Wendy took a chance on something new, a venture in fashion that would one day becoming something bigger. She remained in South Africa, stopped modeling, and began to spend more time with the native Zulu women, becoming a part of their community and sharing in their craft and their history.

Wendy’s first collection, which incorporated semi-precious stones along with Zulu beadwork in a range of jewelry, was unveiled at Paris’ Maison et Objet trade show. The collection was a hit, attracting clients as exclusive as Paul Smith, Donna Karan, Selfridges, and Harrods. So, motivated by the overwhelming demand for her product, Wendy returned to South Africa and founded Dillon&Jada, a boutique fashion brand that takes the essence of Africanism and re-imagines it; shifting the traditional to the fashionable with a playful twist that never loses its trendiness. From tees to jackets to 50s style bags, the sartorial tongue-in-cheek style of Dillon&Jada is ever-present; classic signature pieces are given new life with a whimsical twist, a playfully daring edge.

Chance has always been a part of the brand, from its serendipitous discovery over a decade ago to today, the elements of possibility and luck have been as much a part of it as the skill and detail that goes into the design process.

Dillon&Jada is where South African meets the world; it captures the exoticism, the history, yet it never allows itself to get trapped in the past. The collections are constantly changing, constantly pushing the boundaries, and constantly keeping them guessing.