After COVID ended their careers, this Kiama couple built an award-winning business | Region Illawarra
Kel Swan (left) and Karen Wilson (right) with their children who inspired the name The Sea & Beau. Photo: Supplied. When COVID grounded their travel careers, Kel Swan and Karen “Wil” Wilson suddenly found. . .
Kel Swan (left) and Karen Wilson (right) with their children who inspired the name The Sea & Beau. Photo: Supplied. When COVID grounded their travel careers, Kel Swan and Karen “Wil” Wilson suddenly found themselves starting over with newborn twins. Today, the couple are running Kiama’s coastal-inspired gift and skincare business The Sea & Beau which, a year on from opening, has just taken out Outstanding New Business at the Kiama Business Awards. “It’s just nice to get to see that recognition,” Kel said. “Retail can be a bit of a tough gig. We get a lot of nice feedback from our customers, but to see it was a reward for all of the hard work. ”Before The Sea & Beau, Kel and Wil worked in the travel industry. “We were both in travel up until COVID, where everyone in travel basically got made redundant,” she said. “At the time, I was pregnant with the twins, so it was a bit chaotic. ”She said she began working two days a week when their boys were babies in the shop that previously occupied the space where The Sea & Beau now trades. “It was just to get out of the house and be something besides mum,” she said. “And then I really loved it. I met a lot of nice customers that way, and then it’s all evolved from there. ”She said while neither of them had previous retail experience, they both knew how to treat people well and build a community. “That’s what we’ve been able to bring across from travel,” she said. She said the store boasted a mix of women’s and men’s skincare and gifts that had a focus on natural, sustainable Australian brands. “As a young family, we were already making more conscious choices about the products we used every day and loved finding beautiful Australian brands,” she said. “There’s a big push towards using better ingredients on yourself and on your family, like no-tox or low-tox. “It used to be that you could only really get things online, and there wasn’t much choice, but now it’s nice to have it all in the one spot. “Opening The Sea & Beau was definitely a leap of faith, but we had a clear vision of creating a welcoming space that felt relaxed, personal and full of beautiful Australian brands. “Seeing the community embrace that over the past year has been so rewarding. ”She said with Kiama being seasonal, they had also begun to branch into other offerings, such as Sip and Bead nights. “The first summer was crazy, and then we wanted to make sure we were still having another way of bringing people in over the winter,” she said. Kel said one of their staff members ran Gigi Jewels, a jewellery brand making necklaces. Inside The Sea & Beau in Kiama, which won Outstanding New Business at the Kiama Business Awards. Photo: Supplied. “We chatted with her about the idea of doing these beading nights,” she said. “We put it out there and I was like, well, we’ll see what happens … and it actually went crazy. “We’ve done it twice now and then we’ve got about 30 names on this list that just keeps getting longer of people who would like to do it. ”Kel said each session was deliberately small with about eight participants who each made a necklace they could take home. She said the workshop program was already now expanding, with a Kiama ceramicist booked to run a ceramics class in September. “It’s been good, just thinking outside the square a bit,” she said. “The space is beautiful, so it’s a nice place to host. ”She said the goal was to become a “long-standing shop in Kiama”, admitting it had been “great how people genuinely like to support locals and see locals do well”. “Without that, retail’s not an easy industry,” she said. “I think a lot of our family and friends maybe were slightly concerned when we came up with this idea,” she said, laughing. “But so many people come in and say they want to buy local, so it’s really nice to see that. ”She said even the name carried a local and personal twist, with the “sea” referencing Kiama being coastal and “beau” for beauty. “But our twins, one has the first initial C and one has a middle name Beau,” she said. “So The Sea & Beau is like a throw to them, but we didn’t really want to use their full names. ”She said the logo – two palm trees – was also a nod to the twins. “That’s meant to be them too, but they just keep fighting over which one’s the tallest of the two palm trees,” she said, laughing. “We should have made them the same size. ”The Sea & Beauis located at 96 Terralong St, Kiama.