Sindiso Khumalo: Out of the Ashes
Photos by JD Barnes. Originally published in AphroChic magazine Issue 9, Summer 2022.
Storytelling is an important part of African culture. All throughout the continent, there are griots - repositories of oral traditions who keep history and culture alive through poems, music, songs, tales, and clothes. For fashion designer Sindiso Khumalo, her newest collection is a moment of storytelling worthy of the tradition. The South African designer’s SS22 collection, JAGGER, was created to preserve the history and legacy of one of Africa’s most important libraries - the University of Cape Town Jagger African Studies Library, which was lost to a mountain fire in April of 2021. The blaze consumed great archives of African literature, maps, political posters and countless historical treasures, but the story of the library lives on.
In her collection, Sindiso honors those treasures lost to the fire and those who worked in the library to preserve African scholarship. Two-piece suits in the collection are dedicated to the librarians who built the institution’s archives. Political illustrations by Sinalo Ngcaba are a reference to the political posters, novels, maps and book covers that the fire took. Hand embroidered elements and handmade ceramic buttons evoke the wild flowers that sprung up on the mountain in the place where the building once stood.
A London-based architecture-student-turned-fashion-designer, Sindiso draws heavily on her Zulu and Ndebele heritage in her designs, playing out what she terms a “love affair” with her heritage in physical form. Far from being an homage only to what was lost, the collection is also a lesson on how to preserve and sustain.JAGGER features sustainable materials, including recycled cotton and organic cotton blends across the collection.
The job of griot is not simply to recount the past, but to keep alive the lessons and legacies of history for present generations to build on. Born out of ashes, JAGGER tells a story of the past. But Sindiso’s narrative is for us to hear right now.Bright colors, modern silhouettes,andsustainable materials, all tell the story with the aim of inspiring us towarda bright new future. In this collection, past and present come together, reminding us that all is not lost as long as we follow in those old griot traditions, working through design with artistry to keep our history alive.
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