Lukhanyo Mdingi (Q3235)
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Lukhanyo Mdingi is a fashion house from FMD.
| Language | Label | Description | Also known as |
|---|---|---|---|
| English | Lukhanyo Mdingi |
Lukhanyo Mdingi is a fashion house from FMD. |
Statements
A vibrantly relaxed social gathering in a light-filled garage with young people hanging out wearing clothes popping with brilliant color at the center of attention: at Lukhanyo Mdingi’s presentation in Paris, the atmosphere was buzzing. A couple draped themselves on scooters, others stood in threes, sporting Mdingi’s irresistibly attractive layered variations of trouser suits, fine-gauge and hand-knits, dresses, pleated skirts, and sportswear—all of it singing together in a perfectly-pitched visual chorus of lavender, turquoise, ochre, yellow, brown, and grass green.Mdingi was circulating, speaking about his collection, its provenances, and the hard-working collective culture that has seen South Africa’s phenomenal rise as an on-point epicenter of young fashion creativity. “I’ve realized that we move through community, and we move through sharing,” he smiled. “I think that’s just something that’s within our blood.”What Mdingi achieves in showing is how the arts, crafts, and techniques of African artisans can play a central role in elevating today’s upper-level contemporary designer fashion. He named this collection Burkina, in honor of the CABES Textile Community in Burkina Faso he’s been working with during the pandemic and was running a documentary about the community of weavers and dyers who produce a large part of the collection.As an example, he reached for a group of striped lavender and silvery thread pieces—a slouchy man’s suit and a ruched sleeveless dress. “So, this is a blend of pure organic cotton and metal thread. I worked with them to get the exact Pantone colors—and that intense orange workwear over there,” he explained. “There’s so much sincerity that is literally woven within the fabric. It really is a collaboration, and I rely on their ingenuity. It’s important that I show that there’s a sense of authority in what they achieve. This is how it should be: really understanding how they can add their expertise, to see how they can tighten the design and really make it a lot stronger. I want to overcome those misunderstandings that people sometimes have about craft.”Close-up, his clothes are refined, light, soft, and subtly styled—an eminently wearable wardrobe of knitted polo shirts, baby-fine mohair hand knits, double-layered shorts, and tailoring. His signatures— stripes; his outstanding mixed-media fringed, woven, and knitted stoles; his graphic-contrast sweater—are established sellers on Net-a-Porter and at Selfridges.
The relatability of his work is a key plank of his mission. He’s in the business to sell, and for good reason: sales success feeds back to pay the artisans, mostly women . “There’s a strong social impact in that. As I’ve gotten older, I’m at a stage where I want to recognize that, and ask how can I use what I do to be purposeful and of service? And I think the best way to do that is through working with these communities.”Mdingi talks as if he’s an old hand—it might seem that way to a designer who’s been steadily building his brand between Cape Town and European and American fashion markets since 2015. But in reality, that’s a very few years in which to have created such a mature yet completely fresh and youthful brand—and with such attention to ethics woven into it. He’s a finalist in next week’s Andam Prize. Everything he showed demonstrated exactly what a deserving winner he’d be.
22 June 2022
Lukhanyo Mdingi is part of the unmistakable rise of a young generation who are representing the expansive creative energies of Africa. As a joint winner of the 2021 LVMH Karl Lagerfeld Prize, he brought his collection to Paris this season for its first viewing. At the gallery takeover, models mingled with the audience, wearing his effervescent spectrum of superbly tactile made-in-Africa luxury: Generously trailing mixed-media scarves, mohair and felted ponchos in intense pops of yellow, lavender, and pink, and neat-to-the body Merino knitwear mixed with chic hand-woven trouser suits.“I’m from Cape Town, [South Africa], but I’m originally from the Eastern Cape,” Mdingi explained, by way of introduction. “And I’ve been a designer since we launched in South Africa in 2015. So our labor has been under the radar, and I’m happy about that, because it gave us the chance to put in the foundations to use fashion and entrepreneurship as a vehicle to change what I want to see in the world.”The attention of buyers—they are all over his collection—and the springboard of the Paris showcase is grist for his greater message. “The reception’s been fantastic,” Mdingi said. “And what’s really been important is not necessarily the clothes, but that people can really understand the provenance of the craft and the human beings behind the making of it.”A graduate of Cape Peninsula University of Technology for Fashion Design, Mdingi grew up inspired by Gianni Versace and the supermodel era, “as well as watching a daytime soap,The Bold and the Beautiful. I’m a ’90s kid! Fashion has always been something that I wanted to be a part of, but it’s really shifted now. For me, it’s design as a way to make a social impact, working with extraordinary communities of craftspeople, so they too can have essentially a better life. That’s what it comes down to.”For the last two years, Mdingi has been working to source his woven textiles and knitwear from crafts communities in Burkina Faso, Somalia, and nearer home in the Eastern Cape. “The idea is to see how we can create something that’s really modern, that marries artisanal craft with fashion that lives in the contemporary world, to create something that’s really honest, steady, and really strong.”
20 January 2022