Seeing South African celebrities wear local designers internationally is a step in the right direction.
South African actress Nambitha-Ben Mazwi impressed fans when she attended the Essence Film Festival in New Orleans, Louisiana.
Curated and presented by Essence Studios, the Essence Film Festival is a platform that highlights global black stories and storytellers throughout the diaspora.
The festival showcases original films, episodic projects, animation, podcasts, and new media, as well as panel discussions, workshops, celebrity talks, events and more.
Ben-Mazwi, one of the esteemed guests at the event showed up in style wearing Bam Collective, a South African fashion label rooted in luxurious African fashion.
At the panel discussion where she was one of the speakers, Ben-Mazwi donned a dress from the brand’s Extraterrestrialism 23/24 collection.
The following day, she donned the kinetic dress in chartreuse linen-rayon from the Bam Collective Kineticism 24 collection.
“Kineticism takes its inspiration from the Kinetic and Optic art movements popularised between 1920 and 1950. The collection explores the idea of movement and dynamism within clothing through various physical and illusionary motions,” explained Jacques Bam, founder of Bam Collective.
The “Empini” star was showered with many compliments from people who loved both looks.
“Nambitha is not real, I am convinced she was created by AI after someone prompted most beautiful woman’,” commented i_am_lezz.
Another X user, @emkayreloaded, said: “Not sure if it's the dress, skin or how you radiate in New Orleans but... mh-mh-mh!!.”