South African designer Wanda Lephoto's first womenswear collection began with a memory of his sister

Wanda Lephoto's first womenswear collection began with a memory of his sister

In 1995, a 10-year-old girl appeared in a fashion advertisement. For her brother, designer Wanda Lephoto, she was the face of a brand-new South Africa, a generation brimming with hope and possibility. She passed away that same year.

fashion

Paula Bee on 10 years of fashion, boundaries and representation

More than three decades later, that memory is the starting point for his first-ever womenswear collection, created with the Canvas Studios team and launching exclusively on Bash. Best known for his menswear, Lephoto has spent his career digging through South Africa's fragmented archives, turning research, memory and story into clothes. Now he's asking himself: how might his sister have dressed, expressed herself and defined beauty, identity and womanhood today?

Rather than telling women what to wear, he's chosen to listen. "I don't want to impose my thoughts on what women should look like," he says. "So I'm making this collection from a viewpoint of learning from women what things should feel like and how they want to express themselves using clothing."

The result celebrates the South African woman in all her multiplicity. Familiar prints, patterns and textures are reworked through a fresh, modern lens, a nod to heritage that still feels like something new. And true to Lephoto's ethos, sustainability here goes beyond fabric. It's about local production, circularity, collaboration and the stories each piece carries.

The sweet spot, he says, is clothing that feels elevated yet easy. "I'm interested in this idea of ordinary people wearing everyday clothes that feel elevated and comfortable enough for them to still feel themselves in their skins."

The collaboration comes a year after Lephoto's big night at the 2025 Twyg Sustainable Fashion Awards, where he took home both the Changemaker Award, sponsored by Bash, and the Trans-seasonal Design Award. For Bash and Canvas Studios, this is the next chapter: a commercial platform for an independent South African talent, and a chance for far more women to discover his work.

"Wanda has an incredible ability to take stories that are deeply personal and make them feel universally relevant," says David West, Head of Design for Canvas Studios, Bash's private label. "This collection brings that perspective into a completely new space, while still feeling unmistakably Wanda. For Bash, it's exciting to help take that creative vision to a larger South African audience and give more people the opportunity to discover and wear the work of one of the country's most distinctive designers."

For Lephoto, the goal is simple: to use fashion to bring untold stories to life, challenge perceptions and make work that lives well beyond the runway.

The Wanda Lephoto x Canvas Studios collection launches on 13 October 2026, exclusively on Bash.