Throwing the bones
For his latest collection, award-winning designer Thebe Magugu has collaborated with textile artists in outré experiments that are likely to see him continue his fashion triumph.
When fashion designer Thebe Magugu started working on the central print for Alchemy, his autumn/winter 2021 collection, the question of what was next was on his mind. He called on recently initiated sangoma and fashion stylist Noentla Khumalo to throw the bones, as it were, in search of the answer. “She came to the studio, laid out her mat and she threw her bones with the question, ‘What’s next?’. I think we’re all very curious about what’s next; I think things have been so much in flux that we’re all actually just yearning for a bit more clarity,” says Magugu.
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The designer photographed the objects the sangoma threw on the mat and got to work playing with the elements, making some bigger, some smaller and tweaking the colours.
“I’m [interested] in the changing [attitudes] towards African spirituality, and the idea of
ukuthwasa,” says Magugu, referring to the process through which sangomas receive their calling and training. “Among the youth, it wasn’t really something that was spoken about, like it was this strange sort of secret shame. But I feel like the stigma around ukuthwasa is sort of breaking down as people embrace it a bit more. And I knew I wanted to have a headlining print that spoke to this idea. And, if I’m doing African spirituality, I needed to collaborate with traditional healers, a sangoma to authentically contribute to the collection,” he says.
This infusion of culture, a South African narrative and an innovative approach to textiles is largely what led the designer to wi the coveted global LVMH prize in 2019, becoming the first entrant from the African continent to ever to win the prize. It launched his career to international acclaim and coverage from respected fashion publications.
“I still struggle to speak about it a lot of the time because [of] the way my life has been… I feel like a lot of the things that are happening weren’t meant for me, if that makes sense. There was just so much lack in terms of resources and opportunity. My mom worked incredibly hard, but even so…
“Over the years, you take away the big dream and you start thinking about the practical… The past two years have almost been like an extreme rejection of that and it took a bit of time to get used to it. It’s all these sorts of things that I dreamt of as a teenager but, as I grew up, I started thinking that’s obviously not meant for me. The paradigm shift to change that mentality has been weird and challenging. I’m so thankful,” says Magugu.
Indeed, the past couple of years have brought him moments that young designers around the world can only dream of. Most recently, a dress from one of his previous collections was acquired by New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art as part of their permanent collection.
“There’s also dissociation, and I find that I feel it sometimes … like when I got the email from the Met or when I got an email from [Vogue editor-in-chief] Anna Wintour. It’s almost as if this is happening to someone else and I’m responding for them. It’s crazy, but that’s exactly what it is. That being said, I appreciate that sort of dissonance because I think it’s dangerous when people overly tie the success of their business or brand or company to their actual identity,” Magugu says.
The Thebe Magugu brand now gets to show at Paris Fashion Week on the official schedule, and his collections are sold at various stockists around the world including China, Nigeria, Japan, Italy, Spain and France as well as New York and London.
Magugu says he is particularly proud to find that when it comes to online sales, the brand has significantly grown its South African following: “The wholesale side of my business is more international facing, but my online store is [approximately] 85% local, which is incredible, it’s really incredible.”
The collaborative print with Noentla is one of six looks from the Alchemy collection that the designer has entered into the International Woolmark Prize, another prestigious fashion design competition. He has been named as one of the six finalists. The competition is being judged by a panel including supermodel Naomi Campbell and other leading names in global fashion.
He collaborated with various artisans in innovative ways for the other looks, including working with Ladysmith eco-textile maker Larissa Don to bury wool underground for a few weeks. “For some strange reason, I am quite a big fan of corrugated iron as a motif,” Magugu explains.
“In past collections, I’ve had corrugated iron as a print, but with this one, we wanted to revisit it in a more experimental way. We took white merino wool and sandwiched it between two sheets of corrugated iron, and then we [buried it underground] and let that rust over a few weeks. Then we uncovered, washed and treated it so that it’s a wearable fabric and comfortable. It came out so beautifully, in all these oranges and browns.”
For another print, Magugu and Don took
imphepho, a liquorice plant believed to chase away bad spirits and facilitate communication with one’s ancestors, as well as cannabis leaves, and “flower-pounded” them onto textiles – a technique of using heat, pressure and chemicals to transfer the colour and shapes of the flowers directly onto fabric.
For another, he worked with a company in the Netherlands to translate African scarification patterns onto textile as a proverb written in Braille. “It was for the proverb that says, ‘What you do for your ancestors, your children will do unto you’. I’ve always loved that quote, so the scarification on the back of the jacket also doubles as Braille for that,” says Magugu.
For yet another textile development, he collaborated with revered Japanese textile maker Adachi San. “He made the fabric by hand… H e does it on a loom. It’s this black wool fabric with white pinstripes peppered with rayon pom poms [on] the surface of the fabric.”
As for the question ‘What’s next?’, the designer is happy not knowing what Noentla divined from the bones. Together with his team and collaborators, he is putting in the work and creating the future; building the business, as well as finalising new textile developments that will be part of the Alchemy collection. And winning the Woolmark prize would be yet another first for South African fashion design.