The small-town designer dressing up the rich and famous.
MATOME WAGA SESHOKA wants to take African haute couture to the world. I meet him at his studio in the leafy suburb of Northcliffin Johannesburg. On this Monday afternoon, everything is running behind schedule. First, I am slightly late for the interview, and then, the model is delayed by an hour and the makeup artist has the wrong call-time.
Delays have always played a big part in Seshoka’s entrepreneurial journey.
He came to Johannesburg 14 years ago to study credit management at Technikon Witwatersrand, (TWR), now called the University of Johannesburg.
“It was difficult for my mother to understand this whole fashion thing. She questioned how fashion can be a career. Where we are from, you have to be a teacher, a doctor, or one of those careers. So I went to study credit management,” says the proud Sepedi-speaking designer.
Seshoka says he disliked it. He dropped out three years in. Although delayed, he swapped it for an education in fashion and has never looked back. “Straight out of school, I started my business.
The first few years were a bit hectic, now things are starting to look up,” says Seshoka.
Born and raised in Ga-Matlala, a rural area in Limpopo, 370km from Johannesburg, Seshoka has defied all odds to build a successful fashion brand and dress the who’s who of the entertainment industry.
He named it Antherline Couture, after his mother. She raised three boys as a single parent.
This story is from the September/November 2018 edition of Forbes Woman Africa.
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This story is from the September/November 2018 edition of Forbes Woman Africa.
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