News — Designer

Inga Gubeka started his luxury leather goods brand, Inga Atelier, with a mission of being recognized internationally as one of the best African-made luxury goods brands. Almost every business thrives when it fills a market gap, and Gubeka is making a name for himself by satisfying his niche clientele with his leather products.

“I realized there’s a gap in the market for luxury leather goods, especially ones that are locally-made,” Gubeka told Business Insider.

The young designer began his journey as a different type of designer. He was into interior design. He graduated with a degree in interior design from the Durban University of Technology.

Then just a little boy from the village of Engqeleni in the Eastern Cape, with nothing but dreams of sharing his creativity with the world, he founded his first company Indalo Décor in 2013. The company was into making handcrafted wooden and leather bags clutches, backpacks, and accessories as well as interior decorating items such as lighting solutions and clocks.

At age 28, Gubeka became the youngest South African to have a whiskey named after him after he designed the bottle. Glenfiddich named a premium single malt whisky after him in 2015.

Indalo Décor was thriving to the point where Gubeka was one of four South Africans to be featured in Forbes 30 under 30 in 2016. However, Gubeka at some point felt he was doing more administrative work than designing. The differences between him and his partners became apparent and that led to his resignation and the birth of his luxury goods brand, Inga Atelier, with his brick-and-mortar location in Cape Town.

The focus of his lifestyle brand is to create luxury leather accessories. Customers can personalize their orders at no extra cost.

The bags have gained global grounds and doing extremely well in his home country, South Africa, as well. He speaks of his brand “as a fusion of African luxury and Scandinavian design elements, with specifics on clean lines, attention to detail and simplicity.”

As a first-generation entrepreneur, Gubeka believes in excellence. The leather he uses is mostly sourced from Ethiopia and some South African vendors. It takes nearly five hours to create a single bag. He oversees the designing and cutting. Then his highly qualified and trained team hand stitches and assembles the bags. The stitching is especially a slow process because “everything has to be accurate”.

In February 2019, he sold out his entire range of luxury leather bags after tweeting about his company. “Sales have been ridiculously crazy,” he said at the time.

The Durban raised designer recently had the opportunity to speak at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland where he distributed 120 leather bags to all 120 diplomats including South African president Cyril Ramaphosa.

He believes there is a market for his products and being a Black African will not stop him from thriving in his chosen line of work. He rightfully said, “the right products don’t know color.”

“The world is my oyster, our time is now as black people and we have arrived,” he told GQ.

As a young girl, Oyinda Janet Oreoluwa Akinfenwa nurtured the dreams of being a lawyer and pursued a law degree at Afe Babalola University. Naturally an introvert, she enjoys making clothes as it is her safe space.

In 2017, she made a top out of her mom’s scarf, and three years down the line, her own clothing brand, JANORE, is best known for making clothes that can be styled in different ways.

The young Nigerian, who is currently at the Nigerian law school, is pursuing her dreams to be a designer alongside her law school. She aspires to break into the international fashion scene one day and have one of her pieces on the red carpet.

She came up with her brand name JANORE by combining her two middle names and has been sewing for the last three years with much success. She did not have a clear business plan but went with the flow and now she has sold some of her works in over five different countries.

“Well, I started with what I had, and I just went for it,” she told Face2Face Africa. “The first top I made was from my mum’s scarf and then from her other clothes. Then I went into smaller materials, eventually, I bought more as I kept going.”

The 22-year-old is from a family of six and the last of her siblings. She lives and operates her fashion brand in Ibadan without getting any formal training in sewing.

“I didn’t particularly learn how to at first, it just seemed like something I could do all of a sudden,” she said. “I tried to learn the basics of sewing and cutting from a fashion designer for about a month which further helped me understand my skills better and also helped me improve but for most part, I’m self-taught.”

Akinfenwa enjoys making clothes and modeling her works and these have helped her get more creative. Her personal style has evolved along the line, she said.

She, however, does not recollect how she came about making clothes that can be styled in different ways. “It just sort of happened”, she said, adding that inspiration pours through everything around her. To date, every single design she makes requires a certain level of attention and precision.

There have been times when she has had to abandon the designs all together because they did not come out perfectly.

To her, what people wear matter a lot because it gives them so much confidence and she wants to play a part in ensuring people feel their best when they step out every day.

Currently, Akinfenwa works on the designs alone but with the influx of orders, she has a small group of people helping her to complete her orders in time for delivery.

Her biggest setback, however, is not having the luxury of time to indulge fully in JANORE because of school and certain restrictions that come with living with your parents as an African child.

She however wants to expand her brand after law school. “In next five years, I see my brand as a top go-to brand for fashion items because I plan to branch into men’s wear and over 50 branches in different parts of the world.”

The support from family, friends and social media has been overwhelming since she posted her first work on her page.

People are always waiting for the ‘right time’ to pursue their dreams but Akinfenwa believes otherwise. “You should start from where you are no matter how little or silly your ideas seem initially. You would grow, and you would be surprised with how great you can get if you keep going.

“Also, do not be afraid to break some rules along the way especially if you are a creative because there is no one way to do anything. So do your thing and do not be discouraged. Turn a blind eye to negativity because it does not help anyone. Just do you,” she told