Bravo began as an exciting opportunity, with a imaginative and entrepreneurial spirit called Denny Sebek. Denny a Mechanical Engineer, joined his father’s Textile Engineering company – Rimslow – shortly after graduating from Monash University. Together they designed and manufactured Screen Textile Printing Equipment, that was sold both locally and internationally.
In 2000, Rimslow was approached to create pre and post treatment machines, to enable digital print to be permanently fixated to fabric. Together, George and Denny, designed and engineered, some of the first machines capable of effectively pre-treating, fixating and post-treating, digitally printed fabric in a variety of different fibres and constructs. These pre & post treatment machines were also revolutionary, as they were so compact and small, that they required little factory footprint. Basically what George and Denny made possible, is what we now take for granted, the opportunity to manufacture, without requiring kilometres of pre and post treatment equipment, digitally printed fabric, that could be worn or used as well as any traditional screen printed textiles.
So impressed with what George and Denny created, three international printing giants – Mimaki, Dupont & Stork, invested in Rimslow, swapping machines to create integrated showrooms both in Australia and overseas, for potential customers. These showrooms were designed to show a complete solution for digitally printed textiles.
With three digital textile printing machines at his disposal, along with pre and post treatment machines, it occurred to Denny, that there might be a market locally, not just for the machines, but for him, to print and sell digitally printed fabric. Denny attended Designex in 2003, only a couple of weeks after his “idea” and garnered a great deal of attention. Armed with a new client list, Denny began an earlier incarnation of Bravo. A year later, Natalie Pitt-Sebek, left her role as a Design/Product Developer, specialising in Textiles and Homewares, to help Denny with his growing business.
Denny and Natalie started out initially in fashion and homewares, but were soon approached by three local flag and banner companies, who could see that digital textile print, had the potential to broaden their existing markets and add value to their current offerings. Soon Denny was was printing more soft signage, including major events such as the 2006 Commonwealth Games, than fashion.
After a brief partnership with another large organisation, Denny and Natalie, started Bravo and turned their focus totally to interior and outdoor display, promotional goods and furnishings. In so doing they created, a company capable of developing and managing all sorts of visual merchandising, marketing and advertising opportunities for the Australian market, utilising fabric as it’s main printing media. So it would not be untrue to say, that Denny was well and truly ahead of his time, introducing new technology and revolutionising retail signage in Australia and throughout the world, in the process.