Thebe Magugu will hold fashion shows at the V&A

Thebe Magugu, the South African fashion designer who scored major collaborations with Adidas and AZ Factory , will stage four free fashion shows at the Raphael Court of the Victoria and Albert Museum in London on October 7.

It's part of V&A's Fashion in Motion series, backed by socialite Libbie Scher Mugrabi.< /p>

Tickets will be available on the V&A website from September 29 at 10 a.m.

The shows will be Magugu's first fashion shows outside of Johannesburg, according to the museum, and will feature the highlights of her spring 2023 "Discard Theory" collection.

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Magugu, who won the LVMH award in 2019, visited Dunuza in Johannesburg, a clothing site discarded by Europeans and Americans, to collect materials that he then reinterpreted in the 25-look collection.

"For this collection, I thought about national identity politics and how Western influence has penetrated indigenous clothing,” Magugu said.

"I often see a woman in downtown Johannesburg wearing a shweshwe wrap skirt - a fabric often worn for traditional ceremonies - but paired with a Vodaphone or Manchester United t-shirt I have found Dunuza to act as a link between the local and the global, throwing everything into a crucible that produces a post-modern interpretation of what what is African fashion,” he added.

Oriole Cullen, Senior Curator of Exhibits at the V&A, said Magugu's collections are "beautiful to see" and "also convey important stories."

"Magugu deftly manages to celebrate the possibilities and joy of fashion while causing us, as as viewers and consumers, to reflect and ask how we can all be better at our own engagement with fashion and the politics around it,” she explained.

The fashion shows will take place during V&A's major "Africa Fashion" exhibition, which aims to showcase the continent's global impact and "trigger a renegotiation of the geography of fashion", according to Christine Checinska, Senior Curator of Textiles and Fashion from Africa and the African Diaspora at the museum.

In addition to showcasing looks from Magugu's Fall 2021 collection, the exhibition, which runs through April 16, represents 45 designers from over 20 countries across the continent and spotlights other influential contemporary African fashion designers including Imane Ayissi, Iamisigo, Moshions and Sindiso Khumalo.