BY KIMBERLY KARIATI AT the heart of every nation lies culture and ethnicity which tend to influence the people’s food, lifestyle and fashion choices. Local young fashion designers Leeroy Kanengoni, Ben Horogoda and Tanaka Tapfumanei, who make up Magamba 2 six 3, said their desire was to do wonders in the world of art and fashion designing. In an interview with NewsDay Life & Style, Kanengoni, the group’s spokesperson, said as the new culture brand creators, they believed in coming up with new ideas in fashion designing. “Our art encompasses everything from freestyle art, which is based on ones feelings, mood and inspiration at that time, graffiti and street art, which is also known as pavement art. We also do everything that has to do with fashion, this is what we have always dreamt of and it means everything to us,” he said. “In our craft, we use the basic colours like red, green and yellow which they say works magic in creating colours when you mix them.” Kanengoni said they were working on designs for rhumba singer Farai “Juntal” Serima’s outfits for his forthcoming video. “We are working on a project with Farai Serima, also known as Juntal, whereby we are going to design and dress him on his next video dropping soon. We are also going to do the shooting in association with other companies like Tinpo Media,” he said. “Apart from Juntal, we are also working with up-and-coming brands such as Shots by Fayol, 2 Letters Entertainment, Young African Kings.” Kanengoni said his creativeness dated back to his school days. “I had a passion for sewing and patching small pieces of cloths into great designs as I would also cut jeans and patch another part way back in high school. Meeting with other people who had the same idea marked the begging of a great adventure when we started working together,” he said. “I was also inspired by this other fashion documentary by Nipsey Hussle, which was produced in 2018-19, called The Marathon Clothing Line. I can say it played a major role in my inspiration.” He said as Magamba 2 six 3, their vision was to establish a one-stop shop. “Just like The Marathon Clothing Line and Embedded South Africa, we want to have a clothing line consisting of all types of clothing. We also want to turn our dream into a one-stop shop where we do everything like an events management agency, which caters for models and artists from dressing planning, catering, video and photography shoot,” he said. Just like any other business, Magamba 2 six 3 has not been spared by financial challenges. “We have faced a lot of challenges, but the major one is financial, you might make a product and none are interested to buy and you end up giving your friends or selling it at a cheap price. We hope that as time goes on it is going to get better,” he said.
