I meet Anisa Mpungwe in a small café just outside her shop in the popular Maboneng precinct in Johannesburg. Around us, designer stores, canteens for urban hipsters and a bike-rental spot are set against the chaotic cityscape.
This sexy and inviting space, cool but informal, provides the ideal shell for Mpungwe's rich collections of streetwear-chic garments, a carefree clash of traditional fabrics and structured cuts.
At 29 years old, Mpungwe has been in the industry for just five years, but is already building a label, Loin Cloth and Ashes, that is unique, proudly continental and extremely desirable.
In 2010, she debuted at her first New York Fashion Week as part of the Arise Collective, presenting densely textured dresses and bouffant cropped tops widely inspired by Tanzanian art.
Her work caught the eye of American singer-songwriter and fashion muse Solange Knowles, who brought the label to some prominence.
Mpungwe's latest collection is due to be shown at Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week in Cape Town from August 8 to August?10.
When we meet, Mpungwe is running between fittings. Fashion Week was only days away and she would be showing her collection in Cape Town for the first time, hoping to reach a broader clientele beyond Johannesburg.
From her studio, located just above the shop, she is working around the clock to create a line widely inspired by late 1990s kitsch American comedies such as Clueless or BAPS&ndashfilms about white and black American princesses "living large and taking charge", as one tagline puts it.
Weeks of sketching, daydreaming, cutting and tailoring have gone into the range and her face shows mixed signs of fatigue and anticipation.
Her hair is short, her square glasses in vogue; she is sipping still water from the bottle, and dressed in black from head to toe, a sharp contrast to her polychromatic collections.
The note about her hair is not trivial&ndashthe designer styles it with the same playfulness she injects into her collections, altering it to suit her mood or location.
The daughter of a Tanzanian diplomat, Mpungwe arrived in South Africa at the age of 10, following her father's appointment in the country. Part of her parents' duties included entertaining other dignitaries and dressing up was, consequently, both an obligation and a routine.
Her first memories of chic and elegance are strikingly precise. Two of her parents' guests were Tanzania's former prime minister and secretary general of the Organisation of African Unity, Salim Ahmed Salim, and his wife Amne.
"The minute she walked in, she commanded the room. She was tall and slim and elderly with a calm voice. She wasn't wearing anything fancy: an Arabic-inspired print chiffon [and] georgette long kaftan, a Tanzanian gold necklace with earrings, and her hair was tied in a bun. She wore East African jasmine scented oil&ndashI asked her because she smelt so good. She walked like the queen of some foreign land … and I was mesmerised.
"It changed the way I felt about being a woman, dressing a woman and about design in general."
For someone whose sense of style was so acute, Mpungwe confesses that fashion design was not something she had thought through, but more a chance she took.
"I was great at drawing and someone asked me why I wouldn't go ?into fashion design. So off I went,literally."
She says: "The moment I cut, did the pattern work, placed it on the fabric and then [saw it] in 3D, it opened a door of wonders. All of a sudden, the voices in my head found a key … I love worlds where things don't make any sense, like Alice in Wonderland's: that is what is in my head. When I realised that I could bring out those pictures in creations, it was love at first sight. And it has been like that since."
In 2006, Mpungwe joined the London College of Fashion in the United Kingdom and in 2008, on her return to South Africa, she was the first black woman to win the Elle new talent competition.
The same year, she created her label Loin Cloth and Ashes. When she showcased the label in New York, people associated the brand with a stereotypical image of Africa (the loincloth being a one-piece ?garment often used as underwear, and the ashes a representation of ?the clay one uses to cover the ?face) and expected a line close to asceticism.
Her designs are anything but austere. The wild world crowding Mpungwe's head has found a perfect medium in the bright and colourful fabrics she uses.
She blends African prints with structured, high-waisted dresses. She creates tailored blouses, calf-length skirts, roomy jackets, see-through raincoats or modern jumpsuits that suit the body like Christian Dior's New Look.
"I am so obsessed with my work!" she says.
On a weekday she'll wake at 4am to make it to her atelier by 5am, working until her gym class at 6.30pm. There is not much "me time" in Mpungwe's life.
"I'm a workaholic, just like my dad. I don't think I can be passionate about anything else the way I do now. I love it, I hate it, it makes me sleep, it gives me insomnia. My work is like my crack," she shares before letting out a deep laugh.
With that level of determination it is no wonder she got to show in New York, making her "seemingly impossible dream come true".
She says: "I was the first Tanzanian to show at Bryant [Park], sharing the same ramp as designers I admired such as Michael Kors, Rachel Roy and Alexander McQueen."
Mpungwe says that having a fashion label is challenging.
"I really underestimated how much retail requires: it has to be fast, you have to deliver, the zips can't break, there must be air freshener in the changing rooms and great music."
Regardless, season after season, she brings out strong collections that illustrate an ongoing conversation between tradition and modernism.
"My father once told me: ‘Anisa, never apologise for working hard, don't ever take short cuts and don't make emotional decisions in business.'"
She seems to have followed his advice to the letter.
A few years after its creation Loin Cloth and Ashes offers an unapologetically distinctive take on African prints and has created adherents in the world of modern fashion.
She quotes Japanese designer Yohji Yamamoto to sum up her work: "I'm not interested in fashion; I am interested in cut", and adds: "Where the scissors go is where you'll find my fantasy land."