What Laduma Ngxokolo showed on Sunday at the residence of the South African ambassador to France wasn’t just the fall collection of his label Maxhosa Africa. With his first presentation on the official Paris calendar, he was planting the flag on behalf of the African continent in the global fashion arena.
“I believe we, the African continent, stand a good chance to play a big part in the global value ecosystem of the fashion business,” he told WWD.
In his opinion, African fashion was sustainable, thanks to its access to raw materials and a fast-growing middle class, particularly in his home country of South Africa, a forerunner in terms of retail and textile industrial infrastructure.
The case study he has is his 13-year-old brand, which has over 300 employees and its own vertically integrated knitwear factory.
Core to Maxhosa Africa is his belief that preserving culture comes from making it part of contemporary lives — as Western heritage brands do, he pointed out — rather than keeping it in museums or for special occasions.
He therefore continued his reinterpretation of Xhosa beadwork as well as motifs drawn from the Ndebele and Maasai cultures through the lens of knitwear.
They were used to great effect for a broad range that went from casualwear to dressier fare, with multicolored tracksuits; a cold-shoulder top and matching skirt with a lattice-like motif; lady-like cardigans; a pleated skirt that revealed silk inserts in its godets, and an openwork blue dress made of wide zigzagging bands of rhomboid shapes.
Between its expertise and Nxgokolo’s eye for color harmonies and flattering shapes, his brand has a space in the growing contingent of knit-based cool kids such as CFCL.
Beadwork also nodded to the brand’s roots, embroidered on a pinafore dress or as an asymmetric beaded bolero that had an activewear-style high neck, layered over a chic burgundy skater dress.
There was also a black jacquard suit with the brand’s symbols in its design and outlined with hand-applied contrasting knit piping, one of the quieter options Nxgokolo offered for those who just want to dip their toes in.
And being attracted by the visual appeal of the clothes and becoming curious about where they came from was also an acceptable first approach for Nxgokolo.
“The people that are wearing [the brand] are part of the cultural preservation,” he said. “They might choose to dress our pieces casually, or formally, or any way or style they prefer but they have chosen to be disciples of pushing African fashion to the next level.”
Ultimately, Nxgokolo wants to make sure his message that the brand is “not restricted to the African diaspora, it’s not for the African continent — it’s for the world” is heard loud and clear. A sign that it’s already working: the brand is increasingly being referred to as simply Maxhosa.
He will be amplifying it through his own retail, with a six-month pop-up in New York opening March 24 and plans for one in Paris later this year.
And given the international buyers and press who attended his presentation, the world is listening.
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