Gone are the days when a pair of khaki shorts and a matching shirt were only reserved for farmers.
With her unique designs, Malebo Matlala, who hails from Sekhukhune in Limpopo, wants safari clothing to be incorporated into everyday wear.
“As a person who loves travelling and adventure, I’d often come across people who didn’t know what to wear to these activities and that’s when I identified a gap for the safari clothing items in the market,” she told Sowetan.
While the traditional khaki and green two-piece that consists of a shirt and shorts is a best seller, Matlala’s safari collection expands to bags, overalls, jackets, jumpsuits, dresses and skirts.
“We also manufacture uniforms, coats, half coats, scrubs and worksuits,” she added.
The name Mokatani was derived from the SePedi language and was inspired by the serial entrepreneur’s journey in business.
Entrepreneurship is not easy because it comes with many challenges. If you cannot face them, call upon God and pray a lot.
— Malebo Matlala
“Mokatani means someone who works hard. I came up with this name because I used to have different types of businesses. Before settling on this one, I used to design for weddings; I baked and designed cakes and I did catering and cocktails. I’ve always been a hard worker, so the name is fitting,” she said.
Having started her business in 2021, Matlala’s designs have become popular. However, this has not always been the case.
“When we got into the market, these designs were new to people, so we had to educate people and convince them that they could wear our clothes outside of farms. We had to show them that they could rock these at weddings and that different designs suit different occasions,” she said.
And now that the designs are in demand, Matlala admits that limited capacity and resources needed to produce items are a big challenge that faces the business.
“I feel that we’ve done a lot of marketing and not enough production,” she said.
“As a store that operates solely on WhatsApp, we’ve decided to open two physical stores where we will manufacture and sell from. The first store will be based in Polokwane and the second one in Mokopane. We’ll have trained employees at each store,” she revealed.
Having showcased her designs in Namibia recently, the 37-year-old plans to take over the fashion scene on a global spectrum.
“Two weeks ago, while in Namibia, we discovered that safari clothing is somehow their culture and that was interesting because that could be the case in other parts of the world. This means that we could rock the market globally.”
And for upcoming designers, Matlala shares this advice: “Entrepreneurship is not easy because it comes with many challenges. If you cannot face them, call upon God and pray a lot.”
Sowetan
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