Thebe Magugu was born for fashion \u2013 it\u2019s in his name. \u201cA thebe is a black and white African shield with a hardened hide on it,\u201d the 28-year-old designer says over Zoom from his home in Johannesburg. It\u2019s part of an ensemble worn by his ancestors that includes feathered aprons and cowhide armbands \u2013 \u201cIt\u2019s normally associated with Zulu culture but originates in Botswana,\u201d he adds. His name reflects his work: his own history, identity and experiences are woven into a wider fashion conversation. Sometimes it\u2019s general \u2013 his aptitude with colour palettes that run from sun-bleached pastels to blazing neons, his love of wrapped and draped silhouettes, his gestures to the doek headwraps of South Africa. In his Spring\/Summer 2021 collection there was a black and white polka-dot print. It looks a bit like old Yves Saint Laurent, but it\u2019s composed of the fingerprints of Olivia Forsyth, a former spy for the apartheid government in the 1980s.<\/p>\n
\u201cI want my clothes to be modern relics for the stories of South Africa,\u201d Magugu says. And his home country \u2013 where he lives and works \u2013 is reflected in every facet of what he creates. Film and photographic collaborations with South African photographer and director Kristin-Lee Moolman and Sierra Leone-born stylist IB Kamara, among others, feature his friends as models, often with his hometown and landscapes familiar to him as backdrop. His studio is based in South Africa and his clothing is manufactured there.<\/p>\n
This season, he created his most personal collection yet \u2013 titled Genealogy, it was a sartorial family album of sorts. A video presentation, one side of a split screen shows Magugu sitting with his mother Iris and aunt Esther \u2013 in his words, \u201cthe Rihanna of her time\u201d \u2013 looking through a small box of old family photos. On the other side, models present looks inspired by the photos being discussed. \u201cI love this idea of memory as a reservoir for optimism,\u201d Magugu says on camera. Outfits are rediscovered \u2013 the suit worn by his mother for her first day at work, the polished look of Magugu\u2019s dandy uncle \u2013 and reinvented. \u201cMy family had a very strong sense of self and of individualistic fashion,\u201d he says. \u201cThe clothes they were wearing in those photos were so modern that I don\u2019t feel I did a lot to change them.\u201d The clothes have the sharp tailoring, vibrant colour and inventive print Magugu is known for. But the overriding message is about the power of clothing as a repository for memory, a medium to evoke emotion. Quietly presented at the Palais de Tokyo during Paris Fashion Week, Genealogy was one of the season\u2019s stand-out collections.<\/p>\n
Magugu is originally from Kimberley, a small mining town in the Northern Cape province. He launched his label in 2016, two years after graduating from LISOF in Johannesburg, where he studied fashion design, photography and media. Recognition was swift: he won both the International Fashion Showcase and the LVMH Prize for emerging talent in 2019, becoming the first African designer to receive the latter. Shortly after Genealogy was presented, he was among the 40-plus designers who participated in a tribute show to Alber Elbaz. Magugu\u2019s look was a pleated skirt and blouse in white recycled satin. A throwback to an outfit from Elbaz\u2019s time at Guy Laroche in the late 1990s, it was worn with a huge ostrich-feather hat created with South African milliner Crystal Birch. \u201cBeing included in that was so special to me,\u201d Magugu says.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
In AnOther Magazine Spring\/Summer 2022, Thebe Magugu discusses putting South African history, culture and identity on the map, and his latest collection, Genealogy<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12963,"featured_media":4552,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35,36],"tags":[7,37,38],"class_list":{"0":"post-4555","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-fashion","8":"category-lifestyle","9":"tag-apie-project","10":"tag-fashion","11":"tag-lifestyle"},"yoast_head":"\n