Melvill & Moon

Time Well Spent February 13, 2024

With everything produced out of their Port Elizabeth workshop, the brand offers three product lines: tailormade seat covers; luggage & travel accessories; and campaign furniture.

The heavy duty canvas seat covers are known for both their longevity and the excellence of their fit. The luggage and travel accessories range comes in either leather or canvas with two options in the canvas range: ‘water-resistant oilskin’ or ‘classic’. As a sign of genuine quality, their zips, buckles and other hardware feature solid brass fittings throughout.

The Melvill & Moon campaign furniture range includes products, concepts and designs that have stood the test of time, many of which started with the military. The Roorkhee campaign is an example: named in honour of the headquarters of the Indian Army Corps of Engineers, Roorkhee, it was the standard British army officers’ issue campaign chair from 1898 to the start of Word War 2. Alongside a range of products that share the link of officers’ campaign equipment, it is still made handmade to the same exacting quality standards that made it a go-to chair on safari from day one. 

The influence of their company motto ‘Laudator Temporis Acti’ (the romance of an age gone by) can be felt right across the range due to their commitment to the classic quality standards and material selection from an era where things were made to last. 

Popular in the field in the UK is their dog range along with their range of shooting accessories. Owners of working dogs should consider their Teflon-coated seat covers, which are mud and stain resistant and hand-washable. They fit like a glove and have a transformative effect on the interior of your vehicle with their ongoing reminder of where you’d ideally like to be: in the field, on the field, alongside the field.  

In West with the Night, Beryl Markham’s beautiful memoir of Kenya days in the Happy Valley era, there’s a description of the rooms of the Muthaiga Club that conjures Melvill & Moon’s brand ethos perfectly: “The Muthaiga’s sturdy rooms, not so elaborate as to make a rough-handed hunter pause at its door, nor yet so dowdy as to make a diamond pendant swing ill at ease. These were the rooms which the people who made the Africa I knew danced and talked and laughed, hour after hour.”