The man who designed the Mandela Shirt

By MACHUA KOINANGE

 JOHANNESBURG: Sonwabile Ndamase is a man of many talents. His mother wanted him to be lawyer, but he later found his passion – fashion design – a passion he followed to the world stage as the creator of the famous Madiba Shirts.

What’s more, his relationship with the Mandela family goes way back three decades to the extent that he has managed to perfectly imitate Mandela the man.

On any day, he can do a very good impersonation of Nelson Mandela.

But the trip to the top has not been easy for the Johannesburg based millionaire who has built a successful design house – Vukani Fashions – and launched an annual fashion show to encourage young designers now in its 20th year. 

He has been to Kenya before as a judge in the annual Smirnoff Fashion Awards. He also runs Bernina, a successful mentoring programme for aspiring South African designers.

The journey to the pinnacle of the South African fashion world for Ndamase has however been replete with thorns and plenty of anguish.

His first encounter with Winnie Mandela, with whom he has had a close friendship, did not exactly go down well. The young aspiring clothes designer had arrived in Johannesburg in winter of 1985 hoping to reconnect with Archbishop Desmond Tutu and possibly strike a friendship with the Mother of the Nation.

Apartheid era

Winnie was then under tight security restriction during the brutal apartheid era of the 80’s and 90s characterised by bloody demonstrations and killings.

Ndamase who had been raised in East London and Transkei had met Archbishop Tutu briefly during Steve Biko’s funeral in 1977 and was smitten. His hunger to reconnect with Tutu and meet the real freedom fighters in the ANC forefront was overwhelming.

Winnie initially treated him with suspicion and believed he was a police informer. She dismissed him and Ndamase went away utterly disappointed. In those days, informers would have a tyre put around their necks and set ablaze. They called it necklacing. As fate would have it, he reconnected with Winnie by a strange twist of events with. It involved Ndamase’s sister who had been arrested by security forces.  “My sister had been involved in an incident with the Gauteng police and had been arrested. But several other comrades with her were killed. Winnie sent word she wanted to see me,” recalls Ndamase.

He accompanied Winnie to help identify bodies of the activists.

During the car ride with Winnie to the police station, they reconnected and soon found out they had a lot in common. Winnie was from the Amapondo nation.

That encounter, Ndamase believes, laid the foundation for a friendship that has blossomed to this day. He also went about stamping his authority in the fashion design world, a huge departure from his original dream to be a lawyer. He recalls: “My mother used to tell me that when I grow up, she wanted me to be lawyer.”

Yet, years later his passion had gone in a different direction that would open doors and allow him to meet global power players on stage and travel the world.

He says: “In the 1980s you had male tailors but not designers; designers were likened to sissies (little girls). I had a visionary mother who made me sew and knit jerseys; in fact I had no idea that these were so-called “feminine” tasks. But it was highly unusual in the township at the time – as my choice of occupation as a tailor and seamstress was to be.”

Ndamase began designing iconic clothes for Winnie and she loved it. It gave her certain elegance and style and more importantly allowed her to make an Afrocentric fashion statement. And with that, the once aspiring lawyer became a fashionista for the Mandelas.

The relationship went a notch higher when Nelson Mandela was released in February 1990. The following month, Ndamase got a rare phone call. It was Zindzi Mandela on the line; could he possibly join the family for dinner?

Ndamase trooped to the Mandela residence, he remembers knocking on the door and somebody opened.

Tata at the door

He recalls: “Tata was at the door. It was the first time I met him. He opened the door and when I started to wonder who is this he said:

“Hello, I am Rolihlahla Nelson Mandela. And who are you?”

“I am Sowanbile Ndamase.”

“Ah, you come from Transkei.”

His reputation apparently had preceded him and Mandela knew of his work from Winnie.

They moved together to the dinner table and Mandela turned to him: “I understand you are a designer. Are you really a designer?”

“Yes Tata, I am.”

“Tell me what can you do for me?” And that was the beginning of a long friendship with Nelson Mandela. Ndamase describes Mandela as humble. They started with conversations about how he would like him to create designs for him.

Initially Ndamase did not believe this was really happening. That the world’s greatest icon and now ex-prisoner wanted him to design his clothes. He called daughter Zindzi who gave him the affirmation he needed.

“I didn’t come up with the shirt automatically though. I set about creating an array of suits and other kinds of more ‘statesman like’ attire for him. The second time I met him was to be the turning point. That is when I was informed of the critical fact that was to inform his design inclinations – his health.”

Due to the lengthy exposure to the lime quarry on Robben Island, Mandela’s skin tended to breath better under shirts than heavy suits. In addition the designed collar allowed him to enjoy the respect of a statesman without the need to wear a tie.

He says: “I noticed Tata’s long arms and broad shoulders. Tata’s lung illness due to having dug the quarry meant I’d have to design nothing that was not too heavy, yet still dignified that he could wear in formal meetings at top government level, and would do just as well if he were to address a delegation of business people immediately after that.”

“The result was a shirt made from limited edition African-inspired prints to be worn over slacks, something stylish, without being stifling. Madiba shirts are never casual; they are always buttoned to the top and well-pressed.”

“I started to look for fabrics and anything that I could lay my hands on. I took the samples to him and then Tata started to look at everything I had and the next thing is he asked me to make shirt samples.”

Mandela embraced the samples and a fashion relationship was born. Ndamase gave Mandela special designs that were unique but strongly authentic in terms of the African culture.  Madiba started donning his shirts in public places and soon they were a hit globally. Many of Mandela’s pictures post-prison show him switching from business suits during negotiations with the Apartheid regime of President Frederick De Klerk to wearing the colourful shirts.

Long shirts

And he was particular about his shirts. Ndamase says the Madiba shirts were long, extending past the waistline. “The shirts must be long enough to cover his back and also at the front. He is a tall person. He also wanted some sleeves so that you don’t tuck it in.”

“He wanted it to be a shirt he wore on formal and informal occasions. On the collar, the buttons had to be buttoned up and concealed. The curves and the edge of fabric had to match; when you drop your hands they must not be isolated to the garment.”

After his first orders, Ndamase says he began receiving calls from Mandela’s office for different shirts for him. He also got orders from other people who wanted to present Mandela with the same shirt designs as a gift.

“I created the Madiba shirts,” he declares proudly. The iconic shirts became such a hit that they have weaved their way into the Oxford Dictionary as “Madiba shirts”. Ndamase reveals he has designed the same shirts for such luminaries as South Africa President Jacob Zuma, the King of Lesotho, violin celebrity Yehuda Menuhin, television presenters for state-run SABC and private station ETV as well as many other global celebrities.

His love for fashion design was an affirmation on his talent and his mother may have been disappointed he did not pursue legal practice.

But she takes comfort in the fact that Ndamase’s daughter Simphiwe Ndamase recently graduated in law.

Fond memories

Despite the passing of Mandela and the gloom that has engulfed the nation, Ndamase regales in fond memories he has had with Mandela and the family. The friendship has allowed him to make very convincing impersonations of Mandela.

And he is one of the few people who have received special invitation to attend Mandela’s burial in Qunu.

One incident sticks out when he attended Mandela’s 90th birthday in 2008 and the old man called out from the crowd his ten-year old son and asked him to sit on his lap.

“My son had always asked me many times that he wanted to meet Mandela,” he said fondly. For both it was a very special moment.

The pinnacle of this friendship may be encapsulated by the revelation that Mandela’s body lay in state at Union Building in Pretoria wearing one of his shirts and will conceivably be laid to rest in the trademark shirts as well today. “When the family went to see the body Mama Winnie elected to call me and asked me; can you come to the house? So I went to the house on Tuesday and she was the first to reveal to me that Tata was wearing one of my shirts.” Demand worldwide for the shirts has been phenomenal and are expected to grow exponentially with Mandela’s demise.

Ndamase is adamant that he provided the shirts to Mandela as a service and not for commercial gain. He has never counted how many shirts he has delivered to the old man over the years.

Ndamase at one time had a conversation when Zindzi asked him why he never patented the shirts. He responded that it would have been exploiting Mandela’s name.

On the commercial level if you were to purchase the shirt at his store at Pritchard Street in the Johannesburg central business district, it would cost you around Ksh8,500 per shirt – which is pretty conservative when you consider the shirt is a brand that comes with a much higher value with the name Mandela hanging on it.

And it has the Vukani sticker on it.

But the shirts have also found another market, the counterfeit one. Millions have been replicated and sold off as “original Madiba shirts” flooding the global market from China to the Far East. Ndamase acknowledged the infringement, which he views as “humbling recognition”.

Ndamase already misses his friend but says he declined to view Mandela’s body because he wanted to remember him the way he knew him. “The same way I saw him as energetic, I don’t want to take that away from him.” He will be travelling the 800km trip from the capital to Qunu to say kwaheri to his client and close friend.

And he will be doing so in the knowledge that Mandela will be wearing one of his trademark shirt designs – forever.