When the young South-African fashion designer Laduma Ngxokolo came to Amsterdam in 2014 to talk at WDCD Live he was accompanied by his sister Tina. Back then, she was helping her brother with his Maxhosa by Laduma brand of Xhosa inspired knitwear. But by then she knew already that one day she would present her own fashion collection, which last month she actually did.
‘I have always wanted to launch my fashion line, it was just a matter of time,’ Tina Ngxokolo told The Insider. Last month at the Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week in Johannesburg, Ngxokolo presented her debut collection, a personal ‘point of view of what African beauty is about’. Like her brother she drew her inspiration from Xhosa culture aesthetics, ‘borrowing from the body art of African tribes, mainly the Ethiopian tribe,’ she says. It is vital to depart from one’s own culture and background, Ngxokolo says: ‘My mission is not to run away from it but to celebrate it in my own way through design.’