Tonal Talent
Joburg-based artist Seboni Abner Makgamatha, aka Sir Abner, gives us some insight into his design ideas, including a recent collaboration with bubbly brand Pongrácz.
Tell us about your design journey. I grew up in Mamelodi, and studied in Pretoria after school. My formal background is in graphic design and multimedia. I got into retail because I wanted to work in fashion; I just didn’t quite know what I wanted to do. I always saw fashion as a way of mashing everything together. It was the Zeitgeist of the art world, where things meet and make sense – you can always synthesise and weave ideas, and create something new. You’re big on collaboration – why is it so important for design?
Collaboration is what got us to an era that I like to call post-post-modern, where niche and individuality are really becoming the theme. We can be so different – and we can collaborate on a project but still have individual voices of equal strength, for a bigger, sustainable cause. Because of collaboration, the world has become small. I could be working with anyone in the world, interacting not just with their work but with their culture, how they live, their points of view. It allows us to be open-minded. You recently worked with the Pongrácz brand. What was your brief for the collab? The brand liked my black-and-white aesthetic – I’m usually dressed in black or white, or a combo, because I don’t want to dictate what people should buy through my sartorial choices. Pongrácz has a feature within the brand that is a black-and-white stripe – and they wanted to see what
I’d come up with using this small element of design.
Your Insta bio says “AntiFashion”. What does that mean? When I think of fashion, I think of a mannerism. Fashion gives you a style, but fashion never really changes. Its styles, however, are always changing and evolving. My responsibility is to show other people what this can mean. I don’t favour a certain fashion, but I welcome styles. Everything is fluid, and and it expands beyond clothes. It goes beyond sustainability, which relates to social impact. Inclusive fashion is also a thing. Who is modelling your clothes? This is all “AntiFashion” – using it as a tool to drive something bigger than yourself.
sir.abner | pongracz.co.za