After five consecutive seasons on Paris Fashion Week’s presentation calendar, next month Maxhosa Africa will be the first South African brand to stage a runway show at Paris Fashion Week. While Paris Fashion Week’s official calendar includes both fashion shows and presentations, runway shows are more prestigious than presentations.
For the upcoming SS27 women’s ready-to-wear calendar, which will run from September 28 to October 6, the Paris Fashion Week’s calendar features a total of 68 shows and 33 presentations. To qualify, brands apply to The Fédération de la Haute Couture et de la Mode – the organisation that coordinates Paris Fashion Week and Haute Couture Week. According to the French federation, the selection by a committee of journalists and buyers, is based on “an examination of the creative potential and international outreach of the candidate brands, once the number of open places has been determined”.
After five presentations, Maxhosa Africa will stage a runway show at Paris Fashion Week. Image: Supplied
The Maxhosa Africa SS27 women ready-to-wear runway show will be on 28 September. Image: Supplied
Maxhosa Africa have already brought distinctly South African storytelling onto the global fashion stage during Paris Fashion Week presentations. These included culturally-significant moments that wove music and performance as extensions of their collections. These featured hip hop maestro Maglera Doe Boy in March 2025, the sensational Zawadi Yamungu in October 2025, and the viral Siyikulture show in March 2026 .
So what makes the promotion from presentation to runway show particularly significant? After all, we’ve seen African designers showcase collections during Paris Fashion Week. Platforms like Tranoi powered by Canex have long championed African talent through group presentations that have included labels such as Thebe Magugu, Lagos Space Programme and Connade. Pioneering Cameroonian designer Imane Ayissi has been included in the Paris Fashion Week Haute Couture calendar.
MaXhosa Africa’s culture and communications lead, Ntsika Tyatya explains that promotion to the runway where they will show alongside established fashion giants like Dior, Saint Laurent, Chanel, Balenciaga, Loewe, Celine, Miu Miu and Louis Vuitton, indicates to international luxury investors that MaXhosa Africa possesses the operational rigour to operate at the same level as these European heritage houses.
By securing a spot on the runway schedule, they have the opportunity for even greater visibility. This inclusion aids in amplifying their collection and narrative as global press, buyers and photographers are more likely to be in attendance as runway scheduled shows occur back-to-back with zero overlap compared to the presentation schedule where designers have limited access to an influential audience shaping the global fashion landscape.
With Maxhosa Africa on the schedule between Vautrait, a 2024 LVMH semi-finalist and Hodakova winner of the LVMH Prize in 2025, the milestone marks a permanent shift for African fashion establishing it as an ever-lasting force in the global fashion conversation. This is the ultimate stamp of validation from one of fashion’s highest governing bodies, The Fédération de la Haute Couture et de la Mode. Not that MaXhosa or African designers need validation: They have convincingly built their empire on their own terms, fuelled by the relentless tenacity embedded in the South African DNA.
As the team gears up for the event on 28 September 2026, founder and creative director of MaXhosa Africa, Laduma Ngxokolo shared in a press release, “For us, this Spring-Summer 2027 collection is about recognising how far we have come and being confident in where we are going. We have spent 16 years building a brand with a clear identity, a strong cultural foundation and the ability to stand on a global stage. This is not about proving that we belong. It is about owning our place and continuing to shape the future of African luxury on our own terms.”
