Sindiso Khumalo puts luxury African fashion on the map

You can’t mention luxury African clothing without name-dropping innovative fashion and textile designer Sindiso Khumalo.

Her eponymous womenswear label can attribute much of its success to its presence on global e-commerce site Net-A-Porter, boutiques in Asia and Europe, as well as a newly opened flagship store in Cape Town’s trendy Longkloof precinct.

Khumalo’s move to brick-and-mortar premises is motivated by the desire to get to know her clientele better.

“As a brand going for 10 years now, we’ve always been a wholesale model, which in respect gave us headway into new markets,” Khumalo says.

“We are stockists and fashion brands for Net-a-Porter and boutiques in Asia and Europe. However, we never really got to meet our customers.

“For a long time, I was looking for the right brick and mortar to be in and I had explored this for a couple of years now, post-Covid, and now here we are [in Longkloof].

“Through the store, we get to know our customers intimately; when you’re doing a wholesale model, you’re shipping boxes to a huge company. But, when you are face-to-face, one-on-one talking to customers about fit and size, you learn more about them as well as the physicality of the garments. 

“A large portion of our business is online, but now our customers have the freedom to have a curated shopping experience both online and offline.”

Khumalo’s storefront is a mirror reflection of her brand’s ethos and customers can expect to be greeted by a visually curated space. Thoughtful design elements that nod to Khumalo’s architectural instincts – she studied architecture at the University of Cape Town – complement bespoke feminine silhouettes and hand-illustrated prints that champion the label’s African textile identity.

Khumalo designs all the textiles in her collections based on her drawings, watercolours and abstract cutouts.

“In store, everything’s very personable; we try to learn everyone’s names by heart and it’s very bespoke. We have no more than three to four items per style. With every person who comes to our door, we want to know who they are and make them feel as though we’re part of their wardrobe all the time.”

At the heart of Khumalo’s brand DNA is the desire to create heirlooms in women’s wardrobes.

“I make clothes to last for generations. I’m not in the business of making clothes that last for a season. She [our customer] is a woman who wants to wear that coat for years to come and hand it over to her daughter. She thinks about quality before trends and before seasonality.” 

An eclectic blend of local art and designer furniture pieces is woven throughout the store floor and in between her latest capsule collection, titled Full Bloom. The inspiration behind the collection is rooted in her hometown of Durban.

“Large parts of the collection were inspired by my trip to India last year and a market in Durban called Victoria Street Market, where there is just this beautiful combination of Indian and African traditions kind of merging,” she says.

Khumalo founded her eponymous label in 2014 after the completion of her master’s degree in textiles futures at the world-renowned Central Saint Martins, a college of the University of the Arts, London.

She has since garnered an impressive list of accomplishments, including winning the 2020 GCFA Independent Designer award and being a joint winner of the 2020 LVMH Prize.