What if Africa was the Birthplace of Couture? – See The Thebe Magugu x AZ Factory Collection

Alber Elbaz had just launched AZ Factory when he succumbed to Covid last April. His vision for the new brand encompassed body-positivity, sustainability, and tech, but at its heart were the women he hoped to dress. “We’re not here to transform women; we’re here to hug them,” he told Vogue Runway at the time. He had only a few months to establish a new way of doing things at the Richemont-backed company when he passed. But, a year after his passing, the brand is staying true to those founding principles, and then some.

Early last year, as an exhibition of the tribute collection ‘Love Brings Love”, featuring contributions from 44 designers opened at the Palais Galliera in Paris, AZ Factory announced it would be inviting a rotating series of talents called ‘Amigo’ to create collections for the label. The first Amigo was to be 28-year-old South African designer and LVMH Prize winner Thebe Magugu. His collection, debuted in vogue and Hit stores this month.

Magugu’s collection stays true to the sensibility that Elbaz was nurturing at AZ Factory, but it’s equally representative of his own aesthetic. You’ll note that Magugu’s logo, a “sisterhood emblem” depicting a pair of women holding hands, features as a belt buckle detail on the handkerchief hem pleated skirts he specializes in, and again, as stainless steel hardware in a cut-out at the neckline of a dress in the engineered knit that Elbaz had been developing. The look Magugu designed for the “Love Brings Love” tribute to Elbaz, an ode to a white silk shirtdress he made for Guy Laroche, one of his pre-Lanvin postings, reappears here, only with a hem that looks like it has been dipped or smudged. “Nothing is precise in terms of print work,” Magugu explains.

He sees the African continent as the link between himself and Elbaz, who was born in Morocco. “The question I posed to myself and the design team here is, ‘What if Africa was the birthplace of couture?’ I think about that a lot. The things that make up luxury—the idea of time spent creating something, the storytelling, passing something on from generation to generation—are really the same as you find in African craft, as well. We’re best known for our storytelling and our work with our hands. I thought that was a very interesting intersection that we could explore with the collection.”

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