Thebe Magugu is a designer based in Johannesburg, South Africa. Originally from the small town of Kimberley in the Northern Cape, he moved to Johannesburg to study fashion design, fashion photography and fashion media at the London International School of Fashion.
As part of his graduation at LISF, he won best graduate collection and it was until two years later that he began his fashion label, THEBE MAGUGU, named after himself. Having been raised and inspired by women, his fashion brand is primarily clothing for women. He seeks to add a sleek look to the everyday look of the women he makes clothes for.
Three years after launching his brand, he is creating clothes that have the power to shift global perceptions of South African identity. Magugu’s designs seek to present a fresh image of South Africa: portraying it as a country that is joyful, progressive and complex. Faculty Press, THEBE MAGUGU’s annual publication, is a zine dedicated to capturing and documenting key moments from the upcoming voices that engage with the brand.
Image courtesy of AnOther
Magugu as a fashion designer understands that with the state of affairs in South Africa, certain artistic movements stem from times of suffering, because art allows people to deal with traumas in a proactive way. Magugu was born in Kimberly in 1993, just a year before the country ended the apartheid regime and had its first democratic elections, but just like a lot of South Africans he sees the pain and suffering some parts of the country still face. His response to this pain is to turn it all around and say there can be joy too, there can be the celebration of the very lives that were stripped of their humanity too.
MAGUGU has collaborated with the international brand Adidas on a sportswear collection designed by Magugu which was worn by sports players sponsored by Adidas. For the 2018 Spring collection for Vogue, has also collaborated with Italian designer Pierpaolo Piccolio where both designers gave the other a piece of clothing that they had to turn into their own piece of clothing – using their own designing techniques. When he won the LVMH Prize in 2019, that made him the first African designer to do so and this is regarded an important fashion award globally.
The designer is also intentional about driving more than one narrative with the brand because to be known for one thing can be damaging as much as it can be a trademark. Other themes driven by this work include shattering generic and harmful expectations of what it means to have art coming out of South Africa. The year 2019 marked twenty-five years of freedom for South Africa, and at the International Showcase in London the brand sought to acknowledge the democratic journey South Africa had taken. This took on a celebratory attitude – having previously acknowledged the atrocities of the past it was acknowledging the fight that has taken place to attempt to right those wrongs.
