Weekend Argus (Saturday Edition)
FLAUNT A DIVERSE DESIGN
SOUTH African designer Thebe Magugu’s recent SA Fashion Week (SAFW) Woolworths’ Style By SA collection impressed, with feminine silhouettes with a play of textures and detailing.
His women’s ready-to-wear garments are functional while experimenting with tradition, art and design.
I chat to the designer about the brand and inspirations behind the collection.
Describe the Thebe Magugu customer in four words? either. It’s hard to define why a certain brand gains traction, but one could make the argument that Kate Spade was the antidote to fashion snobbery.
The founders sold the company to the Neiman Marcus Group. It changed hands again and endured various corporate reorganisations. But the brand survived and prospered even though Spade and her husband had moved on. It continues to be a go-to for working women who believe a handbag should not cost the equivalent of a month’s mortgage.
As Kate Spade the brand continued to grow and evolve, its namesake stepped away from fashion. She said she was spending time with her family, including her young daughter Frances, 13.
By 2016, however, the designer had returned to the industry that Confident, smart, risk-taking and impassioned.
What was the biggest inspiration behind your latest collection?
The differences between men and women and how these differences look like together, in one form.
What is your favourite part of being a designer?
Seeing how something goes from an abstract idea, into a second sketch, into a third form and into something entirely different when put on people. made her famous with a new company: Frances Valentine – an amalgam of family names. (She had changed her own name to
Kate Valentine Spade.)
“I feel a little nervous coming off that huge run of success,” Spade said at the time.
Her fresh venture had the familiar, chipper sensibility, the same emphasis on preppy style and the same nod to ladylike decorum. But times had changed drastically. To some degree, Frances Valentine felt like it was from another era, one in which handwritten notes on personalised stationery had currency and civility was the rule rather than the exception. It was prim.
When Spade previewed the spring 2017 Frances Valentine collection in New York, she acknowledged the challenges of a comeback – psychological and financial – but noted that she was not defined by her business.
“I always had a good way of disconnecting myself from the That process is quite fascinating – seeing something morph from nothing.
What are three pieces every woman should have in her winter wardrobe?
An oversized coat, wide leg pants and a very slim polar-neck knit.
Here are my top picks from the collection.
● Shop the Thebe Magugu collection online now at Spree. co.za
● Follow him on Instagram @ thebemagugu company,” Spade said. “I feel proud of what we built, but I’m in a different place. I wasn’t competing with my namesake.
Consumers tend to connect the aesthetics of a brand with its designer’s personality. And in today’s celebrity culture, the designer is the brand. She is presumed to embody it. And to a degree, at least publicly, Spade did. She often wore her hair up in a kind of modified beehive or flipped at the ends like a 1950s sorority girl. She favoured demure dresses and little cardigans.
Her shoes always looked like something from a fairy tale. She exuded good humour.
But that is what designers do. They create a world that is not only believable to consumers, but also enviable. They don’t like to show their effort: That spoils the magic. Spade crafted a vision of fashion that was joyful and welcoming. Countless women took delight in that. And they will remember her for it.