It is rare to peer behind the creative veil and it into the very heart of the design practice. To begin to weave together the varying threads of a designer’s tapestry - both literal and figurative - and reveal their process, brings up queries of the studio, the story - the materiality, inspiration - and how could this even begin to be distilled and conveyed to a community? Such an interrogation is a task so profoundly archival, while being a contemporary elevation of the exhibition format as wholly and holistically suited to sartorial expression in fashion design.

PROVENANCE Pt I is precisely this; a warm, heartfelt welcome by Lukhanyo Mdingi into the intimate nexus upon which his eponymous label has been built since 2015. 

Dissected into four thematic enclaves, PROVENANCE Pt I tells the story of the label’s expedition; and delves deep into the source material of the textural, collaborative and visionary aspects that comprise the Lukhanyo Mdingi cosmology. It is, after all, a cosmology indeed: the label contains within it an essence, language, people, aesthetic and material (from seed to fabrication) and such a world, must be shared. PROVENANCE Pt I is a letter written physically and energetically by Lukhanyo and his team for the label’s provenancial origin; the people and places of South Africa.

Partnering with Morné Visagie, Maybe Corpaci and Rodan Kane Hart of THE FOURTH: Lukhanyo Mdingi’s world is brought to life through the collation and curation of storyboards, handwritten notes, design drawings, mock-ups - final garments - alongside physical manifestations of tools and textiles that make up label’s profound relationship to craft, and the human hands that make. 

Lukhanyo’s story-telling is an ongoing dialogue that makes use of multi-dimensional mediums across continents and practices: garment design being the eventual distillation of this all. Design is the methodology; connection is the vision.