Having recently unveiled her third and latest collection at Design Indaba 2015 in Cape Town, South African-born, London-based clothing designer Sindiso Khumalo is yet another example of local talent shining on a global stage.

The details

Khumalo was born in Botswana and raised in Durban. She studied architecture at the University of Cape Town, following which she relocated to London where she began working in the offices of well-known British-Ghanaian architect David Adjaye.

Her interests may have largely refocused on fashion, but Khumalo still draws her inspiration from the modernist buildings of old (an architectural style of the modernist movement) and she is in fact married to architect Edward McCann, making architecture a big part of Khumalo’s world. The designer did a Masters in Design for Textile Futures at Central St Martins College of Art and Design which she achieved with distinction.

In February 2012, Khumalo launched her eponymous label off the back of the Elle New Talent competition, in which she was a finalist. Her designs were shown in Britain’s Vogue magazine in 2014 and that same year, she was invited to be a part of the Africa Utopia Festival at the Royal Festival Hall in London and the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Art showcased her work at the Earth Matters, Fashion Matters fashion event.

Khumalo told local newspaper, Mail & Guardian, that her love for concrete in buildings has been a constant theme throughout her work and that her latest collection is no exception.

“I’m taken by pre-1960s architecture and the use of concrete there. So I bring a lot of that in my work. For this collection, there’s a lot of bold graphics, which are also really muted down. Some of the prints are white on white, so you’d have to get really close to see it. Some of the prints look [as though] they are peeling off a building. They’ve been printed in a way that looks like a building that’s been worn down,” says Khumalo.

Behind the designs

Khumalo cites the Bauhaus Movement and the Memphis Movement as strong influences in her work but she also draws her textile inspiration from the architectural designs of old modernist buildings in places like her home, Durban and Bulawayo in Zimbabwe. She is a self-confessed “textile-nerd” and has developed a unique visual voice, which draws upon her Zulu and Ndebele heritage.

In an interview with Mail & Guardian, Khumalo explains that the uniform but richly coloured aesthetic of her previous collections has been as a result of the two vastly different environments that she comes from and works in.

Khumalo’s label focuses on modern sustainable contemporary textiles and all garments are printed and manufactured locally in Cape Town, which reduces the footprint of each product. Over the last two years, the designer has also worked with NGO’s in various parts of South Africa in developing a line of sustainable textiles for her womenswear collections.

Her interview with Design Indaba this year revealed that Khumalo’s one-year-old son Khaya, has made her ponder what she leaves behind in the world, and as a result she is paying more attention than ever to the lifecycle of her garments. She uses predominantly natural fibres in her collections and is moving away from designing collections for the seasons which she believes creates waste.

She is quoted by Design Indaba saying, “Fashion has become too fast. So much waste is produced. Someone gets squeezed if there’s that much waste – and it’s usually the small producer, independent boutique or up-and-coming designer.”

The designer’s latest collection has gone back to basics with the incorporation of hand-printed textiles and old techniques such as foiling and flocking. She has hinted that her label will be expanding, saying that fans of her designs can expect to see textiles in various forms in the future.