FASHION: South African Designer Thebe Magugu to Debut Menswear Capsule Collection at Pitti Uomo 100.

May 28

Thebe Magugu (image courtesy Pitti Uomo 100)

South African designer Thebe Magugu, who won the coveted LVMH Prize in 2019, will present a menswear capsule collection at this year’s Pitti Uomo 100 (30 June to 2 July).

“I am incredibly proud to be this season’s guest designer for the special anniversary edition of Pitti Uomo by presenting our first menswear capsule.I have immense respect for the fair's commitment to heritage and tradition through the ever expanding lens of the new, which is what we at Thebe Magugu wholeheartedly believe in. Fashion is an incredibly intelligent industry, with an ability to transport, inform and inspire audiences and, through Pitti, we plan on continuing our commitment to sharing our history and culture through honest and thoughtful clothes,” said Magugu.

The designer’s most recent collection, Thebe Magugu AW21: Alchemy, was released alongside a short film called Banyoli A Bosigo. The project, directed by South African photographer and filmmaker Kristin-Lee Moolman, tells the story of queer love between two women from separate, feuding tribes.

“Many parts of the film interact with the theme of the collection and one of the ways it does that is through the ways women are portrayed with complexity and strength – I didn’t want the fact that they are queer to be the narrative or to be their downfall. I also wanted to normalise the same-sex relationship in the film away from the gaze of typical queer films where they have to go through trauma and are not allowed to just be strong characters like everybody else,” said Moolman in an interview with Dazed.

Thebe Magugu AW21: Alchemy as photographed by Kristin-Lee Moolman