South Africa’s Fashion Renaissance

Nearly every season people come to watch fashion weeks in Milan, Tokyo, Paris, New York, and more. New York Fashion Week alone brings in over 200,000 visitors to the dense city and makes $500 million in direct visitor spending and nearly $11 billion in wages each year (Fleck, 2023). These numbers highlight how profitable and well-watched fashion weeks are. These iconic cities often feature interesting runway performances, clothes, and designers. While these cities continue to impress and amaze people internationally, I recommend adding one more city to your list: Johannesburg, South Africa.

In the past century, South Africa was infamously known as a country with some of the most horrendous treatment of its black and multiracial population. Apartheid in Afrikaans or “appartness” in English, refers to a legal system in South Africa that enabled this racism to occur. Apartheid determined what education, jobs, residency, and transportation you could take naturally leading to a society where proper expression was suppressed and forbidden for people of color (Stanford University, 1994). When apartheid was abolished in South Africa in 1994, many South Africans were able to begin expressing their identities and culture in public, something that was looked down upon by apartheid for decades and its colonizers for centuries. A facet that has been met with interest by the South African public is expression through fashion. 

Whether it be through using traditional South African patterns, styles, or practices many South African designers have established themselves within their country and internationally. In the face of the economic instability in South Africa, the country seems to have a growing fashion market with a new influx of young and talented designers. South Africa has a fashion industry worth over 850 million dollars and is expected to grow by 11.5% within the next year (Fashion - South Africa | Statista Market Forecast, 2024). Many South African fashion designers such as Mmusomaxwell, Thebe Magugu, and Rich Mnisi have been featured in Vogue and collaborated with well-known international brands like Adidas (Adidas, 2022).

South African fashion, like many international fashion industries, is incredibly diverse and often features a combination of traditional and contemporary prints, patterns, and styles. For example, Thebe Magugu, a luxury fashion designer based in Johannesburg, South Africa, does just this. (Magugu, 2024) Perhaps one of my favorite collections coming from the young designer is his alchemy collection where he collaborated with many South African designers. The Alchemy collection contains materials used in some traditional healing practices in South Africa such as cannabis which is used in many South African communities to connect with their ancestors. In addition, the collection challenges gender norms by dressing models in unisex clothes and blurring the line between “masculine” and “feminine” clothes (THE “ALCHEMY” COLLECTION T M . A W 2 0 2 1, 2021). Magugu’s work and incredible success in the international market go to show just how overlooked South African fashion and culture are overlooked by pop culture as it is slowly coming to light. 

In addition to the promotion of South Africa’s many cultures in different countries, the booming fashion industry in South Africa may create more jobs. Given South Africa's unstable economy and an unemployment rate of around 25%, South Africa’s fashion industry may be able to create more jobs in South Africa(Gatawa & Snowball, 2024). The government of South Africa has recognized the potential growth for South Africa’s creative industries such as  Revised White Paper on Arts and Culture (REVISED WHITE PAPER on ARTS, CULTURE and HERITAGE THIRD DRAFT FEBRUARY 2017 for DISCUSSION ONLY, 2017) and the Creative Industry Masterplan (ANNEXURE a Cultural and Creative Industries (CCI) Masterplan, 2022), which outlines plans to increase education, promotion, infrastructure, and support for its artists while addressing how it can stimulate both local economies and the national economies through tourism and job creation. The Creative Industry master plan highlights that 6% of total jobs in South Africa are part of the “creative economy”, which translates to just under 1 million jobs (Thebemagugu, 2022). Although many of these policies outline a bright future for the job creation within South Africa, the policies have been met with mixed effectiveness with a lack of the promised funding, infrastructure, and more; however, it is interesting to see a country investing so much into its people’s creativity right now especially as more countries provide more funding into more science-based subjects (Mbatha & Mason, 2023).

Perhaps the most interesting implication in South Africa to help their fashion industry flourish was the creation of regional fashion councils in many of South Africa’s cities such as the Cape Town, Kwa-Zulu Natal, and Gauteng Fashion Councils (Gatawa & Snowball, 2024). They have goals to help their community gain success whether it be through finance or creative expression, while gaining international recognition. 

Edited by Sherry Cai

References

Adidas. (2022). adidas unite with Thebe Magugu in FW22 for first collection inspired by African heritage, inclusivity and kinship. The NewsMarket; adidas. https://news.adidas.com/swimming/adidas-unite-with-thebe-magugu-in-fw22-for-first-collection-inspired-by-african-heritage--inclusivit/s/5371a738-8589-47c7-a4af-f57b52f2ab60

ANNEXURE A Cultural and Creative Industries (CCI) Masterplan. (2022). https://www.nationalarchives.gov.za/sites/default/files/u4521/Annexure%20A%20-%20Creative%20Industries%20MasterPlan.pdf

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Finley, A. (2016). Cape Town Fashion Council. Fashions of Southern Africa. https://fashionsofsouthernafrica.com/places-and-spaces-of-fashion/cape-town-fashion-council/

Fleck, A. (2023). Infographic: Digital Catwalks? Most Think Fashion Shows Should Go Online. Statista Daily Data. https://www.statista.com/chart/30311/should-fashion-week-go-digital/

Gatawa, N., & Snowball, J. (2024). African Journal of Creative Economy. African Journal of Creative Economy, 1(1.5), 1–11.
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Magugu, T. (2024). THEBE MAGUGU. Thebemagugu.
https://www.thebemagugu.com/

Mbatha, S., & Mason, A. M. (2023). Examining the Effectiveness of the South African Apparel Industry’s Systems of Innovation. Academic Journal of Interdisciplinary Studies, 12(1), 161.
https://doi.org/10.36941/ajis-2023-0014

REVISED WHITE PAPER ON ARTS, CULTURE AND HERITAGE THIRD DRAFT FEBRUARY 2017 FOR DISCUSSION ONLY. (2017). https://www.gov.za/sites/default/files/gcis_document/201706/revised-3rd-draft-rwp-ach-february-2017.pdf

Stanford University. (1994). Apartheid | The Martin Luther King, Jr. Research and Education Institute. Kinginstitute.stanford.edu.
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Textile industry remains a priority for government. (2024). SAnews. https://www.sanews.gov.za/south-africa/textile-industry-remains-priority-government

THE “ALCHEMY” COLLECTION T M . AW2021. (2021). Thebemagugu. https://www.thebemagugu.com/collections/aw-2021/

Verrips, A. (2022). Thebe Magugu’s New Dresses Pay Homage to Eight South African Tribes [Photograph]. Vogue. https://www.vogue.com/slideshow/thebe-magugu-south-africa-dresses-collection