Young designers reinvent traditional Basotho blankets as fashion items
YOU can’t wear a blanket to a corporate meeting, but you can wear a jacket made from a blanket, says fashion designer Thabo Makhetha.Makhetha is known for her reinvention of the famous Basotho blanket, from which she makes capes, jackets, gilets, and other items quite at home at a conference table. "I have found that people who leave — I don’t want to say rural areas, but places where their culture is practised — for the city, start leaving behind their culture. I think you should be able to wear your culture with pride," she says.Makhetha, was ImpACT Awards’ Designer of the Year in 2014, and has just set up shop in Cape Town, moving from Port Elizabeth, where Thabo Makhetha Designs began in 2009. She is not alone. Just more than 1,000km away, in the Lesotho capital Maseru, Teboho Moekoa uses the famous blankets to make handbags and other accessories."The philosophy behind our brand," he says, "is awareness of culture; fashion as a vehicle for that." The Basotho blanket is not your ...
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