Thebe Magugu

Thebe Magugu is an award-winning 30-year-old designer based in Johannesburg who uses fashion as a vehicle for storytelling and education, particularly around women’s issues. Thebe Magugu studied Fashion Design, Fashion Photography and Fashion Media, which are three disciplines that play a very important role in the brand’s storytelling. He opened his namesake label, THEBE MAGUGU, in 2016. It was Thebe’s win of The LVMH [Louis Vuitton Moet Hennessy] Prize in Paris in 2019, the first African designer in history, that fast-tracked the business to what it is today.
The brand is rooted in the idea of education, informing the world about the stories and craft the brand finds itself in, with every collection, season after season, being named after a university subject. Past collections include Geology, Home Economics, Gender Studies, African Studies, Prosopography, Counter Intelligence, Alchemy, DOUBLETHINK, Geneaology, Discard Theory and most recently, Folklorics. This is an important facet of the brand; to act as a resource to its consumers, not only to discover beautiful functional clothes that converge with women’s lives, but for the clothes to tell a story about their very origins.