How Thebe Magugu Holds A Mirror To Society

The South African fashion designer's collections comment on everything from Apartheid to espionage

November 7, 2022

Trevor Stuurman

There’s a thoughtful warmth that comes from every interaction with the South African designer Thebe Magugu. An effort to speak and explain, fused with honourable intention and fierce creativity. In truth, the 2019 LVMH Prize winner has educated as much as he has invented when it comes to his six-year-old eponymous fashion brand. From his SS/21 collection Counterculture – inspired by South African women that worked as spies – to Doublethink, the SS/21 menswear collection that commented on the destabilising effect of corruption, Magugu has shifted mindset and dispelled stereotypes on South Africa through a series of cleverly thought-out collections. In this issue he is photographed for YUNG by lifelong friend, the photographer, Trevor Stuurman.

Your creations are inspired by heritage and experience, which makes us wonder – are clothes ever just clothes?

That’s what makes fashion incredibly intelligent. Clothing can be ‘just clothes’ or a manifestation of very cerebral development and thoughts, just depending on what the wearer wants to lean on. I do prefer using clothes for the latter though. It’s incredibly exciting making clothes that feel like generational relics that can be passed down from generation to generation. Clothes that possess key information about the times, the people and events that the collection was concerned about at that time. Clothing also provides a very deep insight into people’s psychology, so they are a very good visual signifier to understand those things around you

Your collections such as Doublethink and Counter Intelligence have incredibly serious themes – how do you translate something like that into clothing?

It takes quite a bit of deft but it’s probably the most exciting part of creating the collection – the translation of theory to practicality. You have to look at the symbols and if they communicate the idea and its physical manifestation. So for example, Counter Intelligence was about South African ex-spies, who used to work for the Apartheid government of the time and defected to the ANC. How does this read in a garment? Well, fingerprints are a sure way to determine someone’s identity, so I asked one of the spies to give me her police-scanned fingerprint to use as an all-over print on a dress. Fingerprints – symbolically and physically – communicate the idea of access codes and espionage. This is an example of translation from theory to practical.

Doublethink was just as interesting. South Africa was going through an intensely difficult time with corruption. I approached the iconic artist and comic Jonathan Zapiro to create custom illustrations which speak to this issue. Jonathan went to jail in the ’90s because of his activism so it was very special to be able to create work with someone who understands the corrupt underbelly of South African politics so well. It’s very important to create a through-line between inspiration and execution, though. Otherwise you are just over-intellectualising a hoodie. What about that hoodie is communicating the story?

You interviewed South African women for Counterintelligence, what did you learn from these women that you didn’t previously know?

Speaking to these women was a teachable moment on the human condition and the complexity of these women. We tend to think of good and bad in very black and white, binary terms. These women were great wives, good friends, but then could spy and tell on those very people they swore to protect – but they each had reasons to do so. Psychology played a huge role in that collection, trying to find out what made each woman tick and why they would do what they did. Everything comes from somewhere and these cases are no different.

You’ve referenced your mother as the blueprint for some of your collections. Tell us what you’ve learned from the powerful female influences in your life

My family taught me humility, the importance of hard work and how critical a community is. They also influenced my immense love and respect for fashion, and how it in itself is a powerful tool. Growing up, I saw a blouse circulate between my grandmother, my aunt and mother. However, that blouse took on a different energy with each person. I think this is where my appreciation for ready-to-wear came through – that across various generations its purpose still remains the same while allowing various personalities to shine. Clothes done right don’t eclipse the wearer.

In addition, functionality is also quite important in my work – because I saw these matriarchal figures juggle home, work, church and children (with all that comes with), their clothes couldn’t impose and hinder, they needed to aid in the day-to-day.

How do you feel that fashion can impact politics?

Fashion influences politics in a variety of ways, because at the end of it fashion is a mirror held up to society. Shirts, for example, have long been used as sites for resistance – they are the easiest way for a group of people to be seen as a collective whole. I look at women of the Black Sash, who wore a black sash across their chests to showcase the solidarity they had with minorities. That sash became an extremely politicised object, getting banned by South African police at some point. To challenge this, members of the Black Sash then started wearing long gloves and walking around with their hand across their chest. This illustrates just how powerful a message fashion can take.

Fashion can also indicate a socio-political and economic climate. Look at how after times of war and stress [1920’s or 2020], fashion tends to become more extreme and campy, almost as an overcorrection. Tough economic times tend to have more minimalistic fashion. The industry can be a reflection when read correctly.

Also, at its most basic, politicians use fashion to prop themselves up, to command respect and awe. It’s a funny thing, fashion can allow you to become anyone you want to be – it’s an armour.

Have responses to any of your collections ever changed your opinion of the theme that inspired them in the first place?

This hasn’t happened yet because, really, the collections aren’t a beginning, middle and end – there is space for reinterpretation and even critique. I find that the collections expose an idea, but a conclusion isn’t really imposed. It’s like being educated on something – you can learn its basic structure, its premise and everything else, but ultimately you must form an opinion of it and apply it to your own life, context and understanding.

Which of your collections make you most proud?

This is quite a challenging question because each collection has its own pace and intention. However, SS/22’s Genealogy collection was quite special to me. I admittedly had been quite miserable at the time. It’s impossible to ignore what is peak weltschmerz and, as creative people, we tend to subconsciously transcribe whatever hangs in the air into output. That season, I wanted to disengage with mounting pressures of having to create work that considers and reflects the times and to create a personal body of work that, even if niche, looks inwards at the part of my life that always gets me through: my family.

Set-up as a roundtable discussion, Iris Magugu, my mother, and Esther Magugu, my aunt , proceeded to unpack a box of family photos which illustrate significant moments in all our upbringings. The brand has always cited very specific references and motifs, which were all chronicled and broken down in that documentary. The collection pickpockets a variety of eras: my grandmothers masterfully pleated skirts and draped blouses from the 1950’s, my mothers leg-of-mutton sleeves from the 1960’s, and her subsequent rebellion in the 1970’s with improbably short skirts, which my family in jest refers to as her ‘two centimetre clothes’ era. In the ’80’s, my aunt Esther experimented with localised punk, inspired by the rising star of that time Brenda Fassie, who Time magazine had just named The Madonna of the Township. All these women, living under the same house, sharing and workshopping clothes out of necessity, each developed an interesting and hybridised sense of style, which could oscillate from 1990’s Stealth Wealth to 1890’s Devotion.

You’re quite outspoken (via your collections) on various injustices in South Africa. Has there ever been a backlash to this?

It’s always been quite positive. The brand addresses politics that might be specific to South Africa but I think everyone across the globe can relate to at least one element of the story. For example, the SS/22 collection deals with very specific photos from the past but the idea of family is a universal one. AW/21 was about African Healers but the idea of spirituality is a universal one. SS/21 looked at South African spies but the idea of espionage is one that fascinates the world all over.

It does become incredibly difficult for me as an individual though. I completely understand its place as a fashion brand that needs to think for and represent others. But it’s using the collections as a way to tell stories that run the risk of being forgotten – some good, some bad – that I am personally fascinated in. It’s a tricky balancing act between myself as a brand and myself as an artist.

Finally, what has been your most memorable experience?

Creating my current collection was quite memorable. I’ve been rummaging through a lot of discarded clothing at Dunusa, an area in downtown Johannesburg where America and Europe dump piles of second-hand, often soiled garments. It got me thinking about globalisation’s effect on national stylistic identity. It’s not rare to see a local woman wearing a traditional shweshwe-fabric waxed wrap skirt, often reserved for special ceremonies, paired with a promotional Vodaphone or Manchester United polyester tee. This hybridity – an unintentional dialogue between ‘The West and The Rest’ – was the start point of this collection. I subverted ideas from Thorstein Veblen’s 1899 essay “The Theory of the Leisure Class” and the collection experiments with the idea of a ‘trickle-up fashion theory’, instead of the trickle-down version discussed by Veblen, which argues that fashion starts with the bourgeoisie and makes its way down the classes, eventually ending up in places such as Dunusa.

With SS/23, I was interested in how Dunusa can shoot items considered ‘old hat’ back up into a luxury space. The collection was built by sourcing discarded clothing at Dunusa, bringing it into the studio, where I analysed silhouettes and proportions, cut into them to expand, then refashioned them in updated materials. There is a ‘soft decay’ about the collection from a design POV, as if once magnificent clothing is seeing the early stages of damage. Fraying appliqué, gashes of slits and pleated skirts that seem torn into are motifs that communicate the season’s direction.The 20-look collection also has an associating 15 minute process documentary I shot in downtown Johannesburg on site at Dunusa and at my studios.