If Tiffany & Co. had been founded in Africa by novelists H. Rider Haggard or Wilbur Smith, it would probably look something like Patrick Mavros.

Mavros is that rara avis, an African luxury brand whose smart showroom on London’s Chelsea–South Kensington border can hold its own with the best of Bond Street. A swanky flagship store in central London is hardly unusual, but instead of the familiar catechistic quartet of London, Paris, Milan and New York, Mavros operates in London, Mauritius and two African capitals, Zimbabwe’s Harare and Kenya’s Nairobi.

From the crown of his Crocodile Dundee hat to the tips of his Cape buffalo skin boots, the eponymous designer, a fourth-generation Zimbabwean, is the quintessential outdoorsman. He is so strongly redolent of the veldt that you can’t help but look for the machete that ought to be jammed into his belt. Instead, you find an exquisite silver belt buckle depicting a pair of entwined crocodiles, rendered with such artistic sensitivity that, if you don’t know him, it comes as a surprise to learn that the macho Mavros designed it himself.