12/25/2023 0 Comments Fantastical meaningTM: For the foreseeable, I’m actually really satisfied with womenswear, because I feel like there’s even more to learn, and even more silhouettes to explore. This week has been crazy because I’m shipping the last of the boxes to some of my key stores who have bought the men’s collection – it’s very exciting.īS: Do you think it’s something you’ll explore further in the future? I really wanted to challenge myself with my menswear collection and I’m glad I did, because the response has been so phenomenal. I found myself looking away sometimes during the fittings for the menswear collections, because I just don’t understand the male body. So to do menswear was tricky, because it was almost as if the male figure – even though I’m male myself – was a foreign body to me. ![]() I’m so used to the female form, I was raised in a family of women. Thebe Magugu: It was very tricky, I’m not going to lie to you. Magugu will do it with his bare hands if he has to, thrusting open the doors to a world far more liberated than this one.īailey Slater: I want to start by revisiting your SS22 men’s show at the 100th Pitti Uomo as it marked your momentous first step into menswear, what was the transition from womenswear to menswear like for you and how do you see the two interacting within your work? Recently named the first designer to take over AZ Factory, the taste-making creative lab founded by the late designer, Alber Elbaz, Magugu’s infectious passion extends far beyond ateliers and runways, curating diverse mediums, and collapsing archaic systems. ![]() A utility shift dress in cobalt blue spoke to his grandmother’s nurse uniform, while an extended tie flipped over a crisp white shirt shoulder manifested an image of Magugu’s uncle as a smart young choir member. In Genealogy, a deeply introspective womenswear offering inspired by boxes of family photos Magugu found, the designer presented the collection alongside a film that saw him sit down with his mother Iris and aunt Esther to discuss the images and memories he’d lovingly translated with each sharply tailored silhouette, or knife-pleated leg borrowed from a Magugu matriarch. ![]() Originally from Kimberley – the capital of South Africa’s Northern Cape province – and now based out of Johannesburg, the 2017 LVMH prize-winner considers the narratives carried by his label, founded in 2016, encyclopaedic totems of South African culture at large: wholly reliant on local faces and textiles to capture a vibrant and bustling portrait of community and ancestral existence – uplifting those around him in the process.įearless in his dealing with harsh political histories, and respectful in his exploration of the anecdotal mysteries that lay dormant in his surrounding locale, Magugu’s trail for SS22 is blazed with bold ideas and a delicate appreciation for the female form. Though (by his own admission) he may not have been blessed with the gift of the gab, over the years his progressive designs have formed a material megaphone: pre-empting the takedown of corrupt government officials (Doublethink, SS22), cherishing the unconditional love of his family-at-large in times of grief (Anthro 1, FW20), and paying tribute to female freedom fighters in The Black Sash, a non-violent protest group integral to ending Apartheid in South Africa (Prosopography, SS20). Thebe Magugu has always loved to tell stories. Interview originally published in HEROINE 16
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