PARIS — These designers may be a new class of creatives making waves during Paris Fashion Week, but they bring with them experience and wisdom passed down to them, whether from their parents, three generations of their family, or even centuries-old ancestors from a love of the craft.
Makhosa Africa
South African designer Laduma Ngxokolo already had plenty of experience when she launched her label Maxhosa Africa in 2011 at the age of 24.
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“I’m counting over 100 years because the Xhosa people have been doing amazing beadwork for centuries,” she said during a preview with WWD.
Ngxokolo’s first encounter with textile design occurred around the age of 15, when her mother introduced her to machine knitting shortly before her death.
She later studied textile and pattern design at school and then earned a degree in textile design and technology at Nelson Mandela University in her hometown of Port Elizabeth, South Africa. He followed this with a two-year postgraduate course at Central Saint Martins in London, where he was awarded a scholarship and chose the future path of the material.
Maxhosa Africa started as a thesis project based on the idea of a fashion range for Xhosa newcomers. Young men donate items from their childhood, including clothing, as part of a growing tradition of South Africa’s second-largest cultural group, which includes Nelson Mandela and human rights activist and theologian Desmond Tutu.
“My concept was to provide an alternative option. [them] “This is not something that is influenced or inspired by the West,” said Ngxokolo, who personally found popular options stemming from colonial dress codes unappealing.
An avowed Missoni fan, she saw knitwear as the best medium for translating traditional beadwork. Not only are both techniques based on networks of pixel-like units (stitches or beads), but the Italian brand’s artistic approach also reflected the way it wanted to “implement our ideas.” [Xhosa] It is an African-centered art.”
While Ngxokolo is interested in contributing to the preservation of its cultural heritage for the next generation, it is determined that people approach the brand as a high-end fashion line that is “sacred in the celebration of culture”.
“Culture is amazing and so it can be celebrated globally as much as people celebrate heritage,” he said. “My culture is bold and extravagant, but the point I want to prove is that if done right, culture is fashionable, tasteful, and can be worn on a daily basis.”
Contemporary forms revived the patterns he meticulously researched by visiting museums in South Africa, and the project turned into a brand within a few months. Five years later, the first Maxhosa Africa flagship opened in Johannesburg.
These days, the brand has five stores in its home country and will soon open a six-month pop-up store on New York City’s Canal Street. 65 percent of the business, which offers men’s and women’s designs exhibited at the annual one-day Mxs Cultural Festival event that blends music, food and textile making, is made up of women.
It’s time to take the brand, which retails from $400 to $1,500 for intricate maxi dresses, to a larger stage. He said he initially offered wholesale, but backed out after too many one-off projects over the course of a season and never returned.
Moreover, the brand’s first presentation in Paris on March 3 is not only an important step in its development, but also a turning point in Ngxokolo’s career.
Not only is he a new dad, but he’s also handed over the reins of his 300-employee company to his younger sister and is focusing on design, adding homewares and maybe even a baby collection.
“This is my reincarnation, I am starting the brand from scratch and taking a brand new approach,” he said with obvious pleasure.
Renaissance Renaissance
For Cynthia Merhej, the label Renaissance Renaissance is the culmination of three generations of experiences: her great-grandmother, who had a workshop in Jaffa, then in Palestine; his mother Laura and his aunt in Beirut, and his own aunt.
But at the same time, as the name suggests, it is the story of renewal and keeping hope alive in the most difficult conditions.
Growing up after Lebanon’s 30-year civil war, “everything had been destroyed and was just starting to rebuild,” the designer recalled. “Most of what I learned about design, culture, art and so on came from a place of great curiosity and a desire to see what was out there.”
Initially interested in fashion – how could he not be, after a childhood spent at his mother’s knee – he became disillusioned with it in his youth, preferring photography and drawing.
Leaving Lebanon for London, the young creative returned to fashion even as she pursued visual communication and illustration courses at Central Saint Martins and the Royal College of Art.
“But everything I did inevitably led back to fashion, my first love. [particularly] “Because my perspective on storytelling has always been through clothes,” he said. Convinced that he needed to make a move in fashion, he went to Beirut and his mother’s atelier.
Two years of full-time work gave him the capital he needed to launch his own brand in 2016. The next few years were even busier, because while Merhej was learning tailoring and crafting, he was “working five other jobs because this business had to grow organically.” said.
The first collection was being unveiled when the 2019 financial crisis hit her hometown and left Merhej and her husband stranded in Paris. Selected in 2020 as part of Net-a-porter’s Vanguard program, the brand was on the rise when the COVID-19 pandemic began.
He had returned to Beirut in 2020 when an explosion occurred in the city’s port; Hundreds of dead, thousands of injured and many people were left homeless and deprived of their livelihood. “It was really like being stuck on a roller coaster and not knowing when it would end,” he said.
Yet he persevered. The brand’s atelier opened in the Lebanese capital in 2022, under the leadership of Merhej’s mother, thanks to the designer’s belief that producing in his home country is essential to re-encourage creativity in the traumatized country.
Offering prices starting from 120 Euros for tops, 200 Euros for denim, dresses between 500 and 1,100 Euros, and coats up to 1,200 Euros, Renaissance has also signed a knitwear collaboration with the second generation family brand Bielo, greeting the autumn of 2024. will throw. .
Unofficially launching his collections in Paris has already put Merhej’s work on other radars.
The designer was asked to create costumes for the upcoming adaptation of French author Françoise Sagan’s groundbreaking 1954 novel “Bonjour Tristesse,” starring Chloë Sevigny.
Julie Kegels
“For me, it’s all about finding a balance between beauty and ugliness, seriousness and ridiculousness, because I just want to have fun when I design,” Belgian designer Julie Kegels told WWD ahead of her debut collection. “I also want to feel many emotions while stepping outside my comfort zone.”
For this Antwerp native, fashion design was a dream she had nurtured since childhood; especially since she grew up around pieces of leather and fabric, following her father, who was “a super creative and very creative guy” who worked in accessories and bags.
The next natural step was to gain a place in the prestigious fashion department of the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Antwerp; Here he honed his skills under the supervision of Walter Van Beirendonck and Dirk Van Saene.
Following his 2021 graduation, Kegels found himself in “a strange time because you have such a beautiful thing.” [graduate] collection and then you don’t know what to do,” he recalled.
Several projects emerged, including initial ideas for a self-titled brand and a collaboration with contemporary brand Essential Antwerp. But first he decided to cut his teeth at Meryll Rogge and Alaïa under Pieter Mulier.
In the end, his dream of launching his brand won out. “I always had the desire to start something at the right time, but I thought if I waited too long I would get a little scared,” he said.
“It’s about this woman who can be anything she wants and so she can choose what she wants to be, but there’s a duality to her,” she said in her opening presentation.
The retail price of the first collection, produced in Belgium, Italy and Portugal, will be 100 euros for small accessories and up to 2,500 euros for a leather coat. The dresses will be priced between 700 and 1000 euros.
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