The quality of respect runs throughout Lesiba’s work as he engages with African, Eastern, modern, ancient, indigenous, analogue and digital forms of design and opens space for dialogue about Afro-sustainability.
Lesiba is a fashion practitioner and researcher. Photo: Half & Halve
Lesiba understands fashion as an active, enquiring and ever-evolving practice that has played an important role in shaping history and society. He says, “At the beginning of my career, sustainability was not my ambition as a fashion designer. Equally, my outlook of what a fashion designer can do was superficial.” Yet, even as a student at the Tshwane University of Technology he was a critical thinker, especially of European fashion and it’s tendency to extract from or ignore African clothing histories and practices, positioning “Western fashion-making [as] universal and superior”.
An interest in practices outside of the Western canon led Lesiba to borrow ideas from Japan and place them in the centre of an African philosophical approach to design. “I was influenced by the big three designers, Yohji Yamamoto, Rei Kawakubo and Issey Miyake who are informed by Japanese philosophies on life, art and spirituality, for example, the concept of Ma’ which in short is the appreciation of negative space.”
Bongani Tau wearing Lesiba Mabitsela Studio Themba basic draped bottoms in Gaba Road traffic, Kampala, Uganda. Photo: Thabiso Ncanana
Lesiba’s idea was ambitious. He started with a study on clothing that predated colonialism through resources such as ethnographic photography. With a strong leaning towards decolonial theory and writers such as Franz Fanon, Lesiba focussed on silhouettes. He says, “I had a strong impulse to reject what I was taught at school, specifically in pattern-making, and instead favoured primary shapes and less fitted garments whilst minimising seams as much as possible”.
“I first shifted the nucleus of my designs away from the waist to the hips, and later re-engineered this nucleus to what I call the “KANGA Line”, which is a basic diagonal line across the chest inspired by how kanga’s are worn across the African continent. This changed my design focus drastically,” says Lesiba.
Lesiba Mabitsela Studio modern kanga with detachable sleeve. Model: Mariah Mckenzie. Make Up: Valerie Ekegbo. Photo: Mandla Shonhiwa,
This approach, says Lesiba, facilitates making clothes that fit as many body types and sizes as possible through understanding that the ratios between waist and hip measurements can vary drastically to that of body types from the West. His patterns could now be cut with minimal waste, fit multiple body types and were not gender specific. A single garment could also be worn in multiple styles. He used minimal waste for button covers and loops. Lesiba created a sustainable design ecosystem.
His more recent influences are Japanese designers from disciplines other than fashion such as architect Kengo Kuma and Japanese design firm Nendo’s Oki Sato. “They have taught me the power of simplicity in design and the power of sourcing materials from our backyards including appreciation of indigenous design techniques.”
Lesiba Mabitsela Studio Mami Wata Top-and Bellamy hand-painted Capoeira bottoms. Model: Abdul Dube. Photo: Lesiba Mabitsela
As an independent fashion designer, Lesiba recalls his early challenge of accessing desirable, sustainable fabrics. “This was largely the domain of privileged designers who could source, track where the fabrics were made and then purchase these special fabrics.”
This early challenge with lack of access is one of the reasons why Lesiba has turned to localised spaces of production and indigenous textiles, and crafts and knowledge/s from the African continent. “I don’t think that there is enough local awareness of the tremendous potential that lies within indigenous textile production and craft on the continent, especially in South Africa. I think there is potential for bark cloth and banana fibre production in KwaZulu Natal.” Lesiba and his colleagues at the African Fashion Research Institute are currently exploring this potential.
Bosco Ssemiyingo making Barkcloth in Kampala. Photo: The African Fashion Research Institute
Through the AFRI’s Pan-African Research Residency which was supported by Business Art South Africa’s Presidential Stimulus Programme 4 cycle for 2024, efforts are being made to build a community with local crafters in KwaZulu Natal together with artisans from Kampala, Uganda where bark cloth and banana fibre are produced at an advanced and in a sustainable way – no trees have to die for the textile to be cultivated. Travelling from Johannesburg, Cape Town and Durban, Lesiba, Scott Williams, Bongani Tau and Thabiso Ncanana under the stewardship of Kampala based artists Sheila Nakitende and Liz Kobusinge, have been on immersive and educational site visits with local afro-sustainable designers, makers and entrepreneurs in Uganda. Subsequently, they have co-created Afrocentric resources and developed local, decolonial and decentred research methods.
The residency is one of a few in the country that is committed to pan–African exchange and the development of creative practitioners fostering indigenous craft and textile production from the African continent.
Lesiba with Professor Kimani Muturi at TEX FAD in Kampala. Photo: The African Fashion Research Institute
Lesiba says, “This is an African solution to the question of sustainable methods of production and living. This is an example of what we refer to as Afro-sustainability.”
In KwaZulu Natal, there are similar species of trees to the Mutuba tree in Uganda. Lesiba says, “We haven’t learnt to produce textiles from them yet. Hence, we are trying to work with Ugandan crafters, and other sustainability activists in the diaspora such as José Hendo who has been working with barkcloth for a number of years”.
Together with eKhweni Project space, an initiative started in Durban by cultural producer Russel Hlongwane, the Pan-African Research Residency is exploring a tree-growing initiative in Kwa-Zulu Natal as a possible avenue for youth employment and entrepreneurial opportunities and to tackle climate issues such as deforestation and soil erosion in the region. “Not too long ago Durban was named the world’s greenest city, how incredible would it be if the entire province became a hub for sustainable textile production?”
The Pan-African Research Residency is also encouraging fashion design students at the Durban University of Technology to not only look for inspiration from abroad but to look to their local heritage such as the pleating techniques of the Isidwaba [traditional Zulu leather skirt worn by married women] and the unique construction and production of the Isicholo [a married woman’s hat] as a way to engage and relate to our own forms of indigenous craft and knowledge.
“We want to unearth potential new projects and brave new creative practitioners through decolonial fashion education, transdisciplinary collaboration and pan-African exchange,” says Lesiba.
Upcoming event
Lesiba will be facilitating a workshop at Canex in Algiers, Egypt titled: “The Pan-African Research Residency as a Journey Towards Afro-Sustainability through Indigenous Knowledge, Craft and Transdisciplinary Research across the African Continent”
- Venue: Ecole Supérieure des Beaux Arts/ Graduate School of Fine Arts, Algiers
- Date: 18 October
- Time: 4-6pm
- Images supplied by Lesiba Mabitsela. Feature image by Irina Bom Rodriguez featuring Lesiba Mabitsela Studio x Bellamy Ancient Aesthetics Suit. Model: Tania Christina.
- The Pan-African Research Residency is supportted by Business and Art South Africa, the South African Department of Sport, Arts & Culture and the Presidential Employment Stimulus Programme in collaboration with KQ Hub and Afropocene in Kampala and eKwheni and the Durban University of Technology’s Fashion Design Department in Durban, together with other local and international independent organisations, artists, artisans, designers, makers and academics in Uganda & South Africa
- Miah Ke-leigh assisted in the research of the article