“The moment we try to force nostalgia into a single image, it breaks the frame and burns the surface” Svetlana Boym (2001) The Future of Nostalgia, New York: Basic Books

Unafraid and unapologetic, 28 year old South African creative visionary, Thebe Magugu takes us to the heart of his nostalgia with the photographic series ‘Ipopeng Ext’, which features his AW20 collection ‘Anthro 1’ and was exhibited at the Palais de Tokyo during Paris Fashion Week.

The 2019 LVMH Award winning designer was born in Ipopeng Ext. in Kimberley in the Northern Cape. Like many other townships, it’s a place filled with treasure, beauty, pride and hope. Yet, the histories of the place and the stories of its people remain largely unwritten and, almost always, overlooked. In this return to Ipopeng, Magugu generously shares his vision of surreal and sublime beauty found in the place he still calls home. In Setswana, explains Magugu, Ipopeng means “to beautify yourself.”

For Magugu, the project is both ode and dream. The images weave the past with the present. Here, the real and imagined are inseparable. They appear nearer to us now. Histories and memories named and framed on future horizons. The cinematic double exposure of nostalgia makes magic of the mundane. ‘Ipopeng Ext.’ is a deeply personal biography, while also witness to the making of new universal collective memories.

Red sweater girl

Princess Khumalo wears a red polo neck, cut-away knit sweater from the AW20 ‘Anthro 1’ collection. Thebe shares with stylist Ibrahim Kamara an urge to “use the language of fashion to challenge every kind of stereotype”. Asked about letting go of his first love: photography, he explains, “you know a photograph documents and captures a moment in time so you can better know that moment, that feeling, that idea. As a fashion designer, I am now able to do just that, but now using the language of fashion. I can capture and reflect on a moment, a concept, a memory with the clothes I make.” Magugu described the impulse for the current collection as “an unexplainable longing for the values of home, the simple, everyday rhythms of life in Ipopeng, and the innocent charm and grace of my childhood that I remember fondly as a place of fantasy, dream and beautifully fashioned possibilities”. Princess conveys both that sense of drama and serenity, of the past and the future.

Two girls & shrine

Nostalgia is a wistful yearning, drawing on the Greek word nostos meaning a ‘return home’, a longing for, or a return to. We are invited to join in a ritual return to the community of Ipopeng, where Sundays are spent at church, in swirls of incense, song and worship, and Sundays bring out the best dresses and the highest hopes. Here, shared hardships are momentarily suspended, swayed, and spirited away. In the Divine Lady of Fatima Shrine Catholic Church on Phillip Mpiwa Road, we meet friends Smangaliso Majola and Dimpho Jannice Julies. The two girls are caught between youthful innocence and their unknown future fates, gently watched over and protected by the Virgin Mary. Smangaliso wears a pale lilac shimmer feathered fit and flare dress with crystal buckle belt, and Dimpho wears a delicate lilac, checked weave studded shirt and matching hanky-chief skirt, both from AW20. Their extremely fragile yet forceful beauty symbolically captures, like a shimmering prophesy, Ipopeng’s Setswana meaning, to ‘make yourselves pretty.’

Imagination

In 2011 in his self-published fashion zine, Little Black Book, Magugu quotes sci-fi writer Larry Eisenberg, “Imagination is the preview of life’s coming attractions.” A family dining-room is reimagined and transformed into a stage filled with poetic glamour and high drama. The everyday setting becomes the scene for the spectacle, as Annah Seroalo graces the dining-room of Magugu’s childhood home in a bespoke green and white, fluted knit dress from AW20. We share a momentary suspension of disbelief, where what was real and what was a dream are entangled in this act. In his alphabet of fashion in the Little Black Book he wrote that, “T is for Thebe Magugu. Yes. Among other things, I make dresses and although I might be a novice at the moment, by September I will be able to make your matric dance dress. This is my first attempt and already looks like it’s from the runway.” Nine years later, he returns with a runway dress. And, another one. And, yet another.

Leadership

Rorisang Merafe stands with schoolgirl Keletse Tau. Her fine blue and white striped shirt with oversized collar and patch pockets, and sunray pleated wrap skirt conveys a sophisticated confidence. The mustard twill, slim-cut coat is confident. The scholarly pursuits of her youth are adapted, channelled and nurtured to bring out her best. Archaeologist? Storyteller? Long-distance sprinter? Environmentalist? Rosirang dreams of making a better world for her generation, and maybe even for their future children. Keletse is looking forward to more books in their home languages this year in their school library. Keletse adds, “It’s more fun when in the books girls, like us, do whatever we dream of doing!”

Mirage of three

A plain of openness – sky, heaven, earth, water – all merged into one surreal, suspended landscape filled with soft prisms and pristine reflections. The sharp, mirror-like water surface is impenetrable. Its surreal stillness holds other tales, other times, other spirits. In a dreamlike utopian moment, three friends face the future, simultaneously fragile and fierce. Ashleigh Allen wears an asymmetric royal blue and white cutaway pant suit from AW19 ‘African Studies’, Annah Seroalo wears a deep vee-neck softly tailored, teal pant suit from AW20 ‘Anthro 1’, and Brian Sathekge wears a pale blue drawstring suit-jacket and cropped pants from SS20 ‘Prosopography’. Golden shell-like talismans by jeweller Githan Coopoo evoke ancestral time. Sharp, deceptive and powerful, the triangular cut-aways and vee-necks, the slits and selected asymmetries, and the clean tailoring of these engineered suits, channel diamond-like qualities of effortless beauty and uncompromising clarity. Magugu’s mother, Iris Magugu observes the creativity and clarity of her son’s mastery of the sublime. With pride and deep respect, she says “You see, he is living his dream”. He used to say, “You know Mama, one day I’m going to be a designer. I’m going to go to Paris.” His conviction, she shares with us, is executed with diamond-like precision and focus.

Sunday best

This photographic ode to Ipopeng transports a pastel-hued Sunday best from the faded pink facade of Papase Phillip Funeral Service CC in 353 Montshiwa Street, Galeshewe, Kimberley to the world. Bernelee Ndubula, childhood friend of Magugu, wears his lilac-infused kitchen print trench-coat and red studded shirt from AW20. She joins Susan Solani and her daughter Khanyisile Solani, who are also dressed in their Sunday finest. ‘Ipopeng Ext.’ is as much an homage to a unique place and its people, as it is a gifting and paying respects to Ipopeng and the ancestors that came before.

Sunday best including Lilac dress

From the lilac façade of Khanyisile Jerry’s home in Galeshewe, Kimberley to Paris. Khanyisile wears a studded black crepe shirtdress with contrasting topstitching and precision slit seams, a small, circle buckle belt, emblematic gold earrings and a hand-embossed Thebe Magugu black leather bag, all from AW20. Straddling this world and the next, the powerful spirit of faith feeds the deep determination to overcome and triumph.

Feathered

In swathes of pink seen across the vlei, thousands of lesser flamingos make their presence felt. Waves of washed up flamingo feathers line the shore. The light shimmers off the water’s surface reflecting a dramatic cloudscape. An empty freight train pulls its wagons on the nearby railway line. It feels archaic out here, an alternate universe. Annah Seroalo wears a shredded denim-print cotton two piece pant suit from AW20. Gold shell earrings by Githan Coopoo catch the light. A single trim of white ostrich feather falls down one side of the outfit. From the alien mud pools and mirror-like water, Annah appears to rise. This is a place of fantasy, a mirage embodying a dreamy, ethereal and otherworldly imagination.

Nelson’s children

A head and shoulders faded cut-out portrait of former president Nelson Mandela stands in the dusty Nelson Mandela Monument Precinct. Unkept promises to uplift the area, honour the anti-apartheid heroes of the greater Ipopeng and Galeshewe precinct, and bring tourism to the township, remains an ongoing reality 26 years after the fall of apartheid. Yet, schoolgirls Kgomotso Pholoane, Reneilwe Seboganyane, Resegofetse Mabilo, and sisters Kgotsofalang and Keitumetse Kose, in their pale blue and white school uniform, believe that together they can make dreams possible. Like a beacon of hope, Soniah Tau joins the girls, wearing a crisp white shirt and layered pleated skirt from AW20. They demand attention, now. They tell us “Our time is now.”

Green

Hair stylist Blessing Adedara cuts a fine figure in a deep green, structured jacquard-print, two-piece suit from AW20. We are challenged by this photographic series to merge the extremes, where Ipopeng – a place at once drab, neglected, dusty and dry – can be colourful, industrious, exciting, entrepreneurial. In preparation for the collection Magugu shared his thoughts: “For this collection, I was working intuitively, thinking about myself, my childhood, my feelings and thoughts growing up in Ipopeng. Like, how do you ‘research’ what you intrinsically know? I needed to allow it to become itself. I had to trust and accept the process and myself.” Yet the same time, with AW20 he is is busy rewriting the performative potential of Ipopeng, updating its script, not only for us, but also for its residents. To be proud, beautiful, empowered.

Dr Erica de Greef wrote this text to accompany the ‘Ipopeng Ext’ exhibition and adapted for Nataal. She is co-founder of the African Fashion Research Institute [AFRI], curator at large of fashion at Zeitz Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCAA) in Cape Town, and steering committee member of the Research Collective for Decolonising Fashion (RCDF).

Photography Kristin-Lee Moolman
Styling Ibrahim Kamara
Production Lampost

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Published on 17/03/2020