House of Ole returned to SA Fashion Week since his last 20 years of Loxion Kulca celebratory collaboration collection in 2018. For AW2020 the menswear designer, Ole Ledimo, designed under the theme of his 40th birthday celebration. A reflective and gratitude collection that was a collective celebration of everything the designer loves.
House of Ole’s AW2020 collection was mainly inspired by the two cities that Ledimo calls home; Mangaung where he grew up and Johannesburg where he relocated to pursue his career in fashion and now lives with his wife, three children and a newly gifted bulldog. He says “this collection was important for me in a sense that it reflects on my life and looks back to my early days in Mangaung, Bloemfontein. And no one understanding the industry e ke batlang go tsena mogo yone. I had a grandma who believed in me and she has always been supportive.”
Ledimo says that the emphasis was on tailoring and he used luxurious fabrications such as leather, velvets and deep dying technique for some of the fabrics. There were some hidden gems in the collection you had to find for yourself as you walked around the installation. There were first name initials of some models’ names attached to clothes they were wearing. so clever I love secret clues left to be deciphered by nerds.
Ledimo says he found the collection gratifying as he fused all the elements that he loves and like such as his love for motorbikes, Moroccan architecture, the Saville Row tailoring technique he studied in London, and his love for animals. “How special that Jena Johnson bought me a bulldog when I am turning 40. So it was part of the celebration, new member of the family. I just wanted to have fun. I wanted to have something intimate, something that people can look at and see House of Ole. I hope that different people had different interpretation” said Ledimo.
House of Ole has been positioned as ‘wearable art’ tailoring menswear fashion line. In the past, the designer has partnered with fine artists like Nelson Makamo who drew his signature faces motifs on to House of Ole garments. House of Ole’s shows are mostly installations curated in a gallery style or hosted at gallery spaces such as Gallery Momo. This season he also hosted the show in a gallery installation form he says “I just wanted to create a fashion gallery. Let people come and see beauty, dream, possibilities and inspire someone and I hope the collection did exactly that