Who would have thought young Kapasa Musonda was about to discover a new path and style for print lovers with her fashion designing trip when she discovered her fashion brand Mangishi Doll in 2014? The young Zambian designer has added a component which one can say has been missing from the print culture, and that is eccentricity.
After viewing the print culture go through various phases for decades, first it’s popularity in Africa, then it’s loss of popularity, then it’s casualness, then it’s appeal to black Americans, then it return appeal in Africa, then it’s appeal internationally, then it opens doors for designers in Africa, then it opens doors and business opportunities for blacks in the West that start to use print fabrics.
Never in this timeline has there been such a used of print, creating such an ecstatic tropical feel with an appeal to resort fashion lovers. Young Kapasa is definitely upto something, and we call it innovation. For years many in the print culture end of the fashion world (not all) have emulated styles that already existed, simply fusing print into their creations.
This can be true with one or two pieces of Kapasa’s work, but the overall love is beyond the usual.