Heirlooms of the Future
5 African designers revitalising the traditions of tomorrow, artfully drawing on ancestral construction, embellishment and materials to pass on to future generations.
09 APRIL 2026
By KHENSANI MOHLATLOLE
In a world of disposable, single-use clothing and rapidly changing micro-trends, what will future generations inherit? Throughout history, the best place to shop has always been someone else’s wardrobe. For centuries, before the Industrial Revolution, textiles and clothing were mostly produced by hand in time-consuming, expensive and labour-intensive processes. Even for the extremely wealthy royalty and nobility of the past, clothing was a serious financial investment. This meant items had to meet contemporary trends while having the possibility to be worn repeatedly, passed down and reworked over time.
In Africa, this has been realised through size-adjustable and modular silhouettes, zero-waste pattern-cutting and surface embellishment as both a method for socio-culturally significant adornment and structural reinforcement, prolonging a garment’s lifespan. While the environmental and economic factors for this have drastically changed, several African designers are still working within this older framework — making and remaking traditions for tomorrow. Perhaps today more than ever, it is important to intentionally craft heirloom pieces: fashion designed to be passed on despite a culture so committed to disposability.
Babayo: Black Fulani Embroidered Kaftan Dress
Fulani embroidery is an ancient decorative tradition most notable for its use of brightly coloured threads set against dark or neutral backgrounds. Reds, blues, greens and yellows are arranged in curvilinear and geometric designs that are at once simple and complex.
For Nigerian brand Babayo, small handcrafted patches of Fulani embroidery are practically a design signature, and the Embroidered Kaftan Dress keeps this tradition alive — this time set against their interpretation of the babanringa, a traditional Hausa garment designed to protect desert-bound communities from wind and sand. Cut in rectangles, the silhouette produces minimal waste while accommodating a changing body — or changing bodies — ensuring the garment can be kept and reused over time.
Glotto x Pink Boto: Nile Crocodile Jersey
Few cultural phenomena have united communities across Africa quite like football. The sport has launched global icons while also producing its own sartorial culture of collecting prized vintage jerseys.
Botswana-based Glotto taps into this legacy through its collaboration with Brazilian brand Pink Boto. The Nile Crocodile Jersey celebrates the significance of football in both Africa and South America. The bright blue tone — matching the Botswana flag — honours shared cultural values between the two regions. On the back, an illustration of the Açu Alligator and Nile Crocodile is decorated with Indigenous-American motifs, connecting these river creatures to each nation’s UNESCO-protected water systems: the Okavango Delta and the Amazon.
Margaux Wong: Petal Horn & Brass Bracelet
Environmental stewardship has long been central to many African cultures, where reducing waste is understood as a way of living in harmony with nature. Historically, communities have engineered value from every part of an animal. Hides become leather garments, dung becomes flooring and horns are transformed into jewellery.
In Burundi, Margaux Wong creates Afro-modernist wearable art using cow horn and recycled brass — another longstanding African jewellery tradition shaped through East African practices. Cattle still holds deep cultural significance across the continent, from dowries to ritual symbolism, and Wong’s Petal Horn & Brass Bracelet offers a way to embody that history within contemporary adornment.
Rich Mnisi: Xibelana Mini
Inspired by his Tsonga heritage, Rich Mnisi’s Xibelana Mini bridges past and present. The tinguvu, more commonly referred to as the xibelani, is a cotton skirt traditionally pleated with up to 30–40 metres of fabric to accentuate movement during dance.
Mnisi’s version preserves the sense of fluidity and rhythm through knotted merino wool tassels attached to a cotton basque. The historically used cotton remains central to the garment, while the addition of merino wool — one of South Africa’s most prized fibres — introduces durability, lustre and strength. The design balances cultural specificity with a form that can evolve across generations of wearers.
Zyne: Medusa Flat
Since 2016, Zyne founders Laura Pujol and Zineb Britel have worked to ensure that the Moroccan babouche survives well into the twenty-first century. The heel-less leather slipper dates back at least to the second century and has long incorporated embroidery, beading and tasselling techniques.
To adapt the form for modern life, Zyne introduces structured insteps and soles while maintaining the centuries-old artisanal processes behind the shoe’s construction. The Medusa Flat features curving, wave-like lines reminiscent of North Africa’s desert landscapes, where Arab and Amazigh influences intersected historically. Embellished with sequins, satin stitching and beading, each pair is produced entirely by hand in Morocco, requiring up to thirty-six hours of labour.
What makes these pieces heirlooms for the future is not only their reference to inherited techniques but the intentional handcraft embedded in their creation. Designers research, learn and pass on indigenous knowledge systems through weaving, embroidery, beading and other tactile processes. Unlike mass-manufactured clothing, each garment remains tied to the experience of human hands, carrying the small irregularities that mark craftsmanship. These imperfections are not flaws but signatures of authorship — transforming a wardrobe into a living archive that future generations may one day wear, interpret and inherit
