Design Brand To Know: Masa Mara

'Innovative fashion brand'

Masa Mara is a contemporary fashion brand that is Rwandan rooted but currently hails from South Africa. Founded in 2014 by Amza Niyonzima (popularly known as Eli Gold), Masa Mara is a ready-to-wear label with a flair for the unexpected, one that fuses contemporary sportswear aesthetic with elements of Gold’s Rwandan heritage. Powered by a mission to honor the cultural wear of various African tribes, his designs are created to celebrate African innovation and he considers his work to be a mode of communicating African cultural stories of different tribes to today’s generation.

Masa Mara captures the harmony that can exist between the past and the present; the traditional and the modern. Designs honor the cultural wear of various tribes while blending these elements with urban active wear, to introduce traditional values to today’s generation, while celebrating their innovation.

Since its establishment, Masa Mara has exhibited at Cape Town’s famed International Jazz Festival as well as South African Menswear Fashion Week. Gold was also invited to show at African Fashion Week in Amsterdam, and in 2017, was awarded the Young African Fashion Innovative Award by NNUA in Canada.

The brand’s latest A/W ’22 dubbed Mugongo Wahetse intore ” A back that carried the chosen one’ honors those that came before us and is described as a commemoration to our ancestors.

The creative director had this to say about the collection:

As few would know, my love for fashion, textiles, and everything creative comes from both my mom and grandfather. My mom was a lover of bold colors, with which she engaged through her wardrobe collection and trade in African fabric. My grandfather, who gave me the gift of fashion designing, was a tailor. I honor them by making them my partners on this journey. Being in different dimensions, a stronger portal has been opened that makes us more powerful than ever before.

See the collection below: