Thebe Magugu and the Crisis of Memory
Prescript: Before starting this series, I initially wanted to write a post detailing my positionality within the fashion industry at large, because the topic is so fraught and writing about it as a queer, economically privileged, Chinese-American woman [insert other labels here] comes with a set of perspectives that need to be interrogated. Sadly, I’ve been really busy with other projects this month and couldn’t finish that post in time, but I really wanted to get this Thebe Magugu piece out in honor of Black History Month. Just know that I will write that post soon because I think it’s so important to know my context before hearing me out. I feel incredibly lucky to afford to purchase clothes from these designers and write about fashion in the way that I can, and I acknowledge that not everyone is able to do so. Regardless of your personal relationship to the fashion industrial complex, I hope through this series you’re able to find a bit more joy in the ways you present yourself to the world – that will always be my one and only wish. Enjoy this ramble about Thebe Magugu (:
I stumbled upon Thebe Magugu’s work one evening during a biweekly spiral down fashion Youtube. The inciting incident was a pair of white boots, the exact pair I’m now wearing in these photos. There were so many things that struck me about their design: the architectural heel, the obnoxiously pointed toe, the weird aesthetic blend of futura and cowgirl. I knew immediately that I loved the shoes, but I couldn’t yet pinpoint why.
Thebe Magugu was born and raised in South Africa, and he chose to launch his label there, in Johannesburg, in 2017. That choice in itself was unconventional for a young designer in the fashion industry, where the expectation is to study in a posh European city and remain there to establish your career. However, for Magugu, the decision seemed inevitable. In the press release of his most recent collection, where each design is based on an old photograph of his family members, he comments, “It’s this idea of memory as a reservoir for optimism.” For a designer whose craft is built on memory, working in the landscape of that memory is the only possibility.
That synergy between land and memory is ever present in Magugu’s design. The tunic featured in these photos is from his Autumn/Winter 2021 collection, “ALCHEMY.” Inspired by African Spirituality, traditional healing, and shamanism, the collection showcases prints of objects used to divinate and an abundance of natural textiles. Magugu collaborated with Noentla Khumalo, a Johannesburg based stylist and natural healer, and textile and print makers from around the world to create this collection – and it shows in ways at once clear and subtle. The result is clothing that feels specific yet universal, giving the viewer a sense of double vision. Take the tunic I’m wearing for example. On one hand, it directly references the long tunics worn by sangoma healers, but at another glance, it could pass as the inconspicuous sweater of a school uniform.
The play on multiple dress codes lends into Magugu’s interest in clothing as a cornucopia of identity. In his Spring/Summer 2021 collection, “COUNTER INTELLIGENCE”, he dismantles our understanding of spies as they are represented in popular culture by melding elements of spy gadgetry with the day-to-day costume of South African women: collared shirts, mini skirts, midi dresses. On this collection, which draws on interviews with female spies who worked with South Africa’s old Apartheid government, Magugu writes:
“Our immediate picture of spies is largely informed by their portrayal in popular culture – slim, ostentatiously demure, fashionable and aloof. Truth is, spies are all around us, they are our beloved teachers, friends and family members.”
In this regard, clothing for Magugu is the discourse of identity. It carries the geology of our memory, our livelihoods, our multiplicity. Wearing his designs, you feel empowered to say, yes, I am at once healer and scholar. I can, in fact, carry the trauma and joy of my ancestors, and I offer them to you in how I dress myself.
And so I return to the inciting incident of my love letter to Thebe Magugu, those elusive white boots. Pulled also from the “ALCHEMY” collection and titled the “the Sunday Best Boot,” the shoe directly references standard men’s loafers and the elongated shoes pastors wear in downtown Johannesburg. The pointed toe can even be attributed as far back as 15th century Crakow shoes. Replacing the traditional buckle of a loafer is a stainless steel logo of the Thebe Magugu label, the Sisterhood Emblem, which features two women sitting hand in hand (the same logo is seen on the tunic I’m wearing). In an interview about the logo, Magugu emphasizes the significance of the representation of womanhood in the design:
“I’ve always felt like the brand is a refuge for women’s needs. We felt that the outline of the women sitting and supporting one another, existing in their own universe, was so emblematic of the niche that I was trying to carve out.
When people think of South Africa they typically think of Apartheid, people like Nelson Mandela and Desmond Tutu. People think of the men most frequently, and a lot of the women’s histories and smaller stories that were equally as important are left to the margins. I want the brand to function almost like an encyclopedia of those hidden gems that might otherwise run the risk of being forgotten.”
I can now confidently say that I love these shoes because they so eloquently communicate what I’m still trying to find the words for in this essay. They represent a past – with quotations of fashion history both near and far – that informs the promise of an expansive, femme-core future.
In my effort to join Magugu’s call for deconstruction and disruption, I styled this outfit with my own interpretation of breaking dress codes. Embodying the attitude of a schoolgirl attempting to revamp her bland school uniform, I transformed the tunic (which is definitely supposed to be worn with pants, as observed by the outrageously high side slits) into a mini dress vaguely reminiscent of 60s mod. The call for Mary Jane flats has been dismissed for dangerously pointed, heeled boots. I feel equal parts rebel grrrl and Slytherin in this fit, and I’m strangely transported to some hazy high school dog days, rocking out on my bed to My Chemical Romance and Fall Out Boy, channelling a misdirected but earnest suburban rage.
I’m currently writing this in my childhood bedroom, the bed that on which I danced my punk soul out is literally three feet away. I never expected that a year and half from my college graduation, I would return to where I started. I feel that I found Thebe Magugu at the right time in my life, when the decision to stay or to leave my hometown of San Jose, my second homeland, presents itself over and over again. My current day job as a remote product designer makes it easy to hop around the world, and I make enough that living and traveling are non-issues. Yet, I find myself falling into the rhythms of my suburbia. On my daily walks in the hills behind my parents’ house, I gaze at the gridded neighborhoods of the South Bay sprawling before me, and hypnotized by the infinite in-betweens between fenced properties, I hear the call to create. I don’t think I would have started this fashion series if I were somewhere else, too caught up in the noise of a new place to listen to the questions in my head.
I’m still figuring out a lot of loose ends in my life (theater! love! friendship!), but I know that I resonate deeply with Magugu’s choice to stay in his country. He dismantled the crisis of memory, the dilemma of choosing between homeland’s call and a future in the cosmopolitan West, and performs through his designs that the local is global — the personal is political. In his own words:
“What’s incredibly powerful about fashion is how stories like this—when taken from history or from concept and introduced into clothing as an aesthetic—can reach a lot of people. Fashion’s power comes from its immediacy. I can say something and launch it onto a million bodies, and those stories will be present in Japan, in Europe, and in America—wherever.”
The nitty gritty
Tunic: Thebe Magugu
Turtleneck: I’m not 100% sure because it’s quite old, but I think it’s from Costco (:
Biker shorts: Lululemon
Shoes: Thebe Magugu
Earring: Swarovski
