DESIGNER Laduma Ngxokolo is flying the South African flag high. His MaXhosa pieces will appear on Coming 2 America.
He announced that he was one of the designers who dressed the cast for the movie starring actress Nomzamo Mbatha with Hollywood heavyweights Eddie Murphy, Leslie Jones and Wesley Snipes.
He said as a new company: "I thought about using a film to promote my brand. I mean, people don’t forget movies and they remember outfits forever. I never thought it would be a movie of this calibre. I didn’t think my dreams would go this far at all,” he said.
Laduma said he was approached by Ruth E CaLaduma said although he knew his designs would eventually make it into a film, he didn’t think it would be such a big one.
“When we were starting out arter, who won the Oscar for Best Costume Designer for Black Panther in 2019.
“We created about 200 pieces and we sent them to her. It took us about a month to finish everything. Ruth is the one who got the job as costume designer, officially, but she thought her job would be missing without a touch of Maxhosa,” he said.
The designer said none of this would have been possible if he didn’t have his own place to work. Laduma said he would definitely want to work on a project like this again.
Taking to Instagram, he also shared snaps of his designs worn by the actors, saying Oscar-winning costume designer Ruth E Carter approached him for the project.
“A call from the queen of costume design @therealruthecarter in 2019 to co-work with her on a few @MaXhosa pieces for the Coming 2 America film, the rest was history and history was made. My team and I enjoyed every minute of working on this project. We were especially delighted to see our pieces on our very own @nomzamo_m and several acts we grew up dreaming of meeting, thank you Ruth,” he wrote.
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Nomzamo said she was proud and excited to see MaXhosa pieces on set.
“The excitement when I was in fittings, the pride when I was seeing everyone in the palace donning a MaXhosa piece. Literally telling anyone and everyone they needed to know just how fortunate they were to be draped in African luxury. What an honour,” she wrote.
The movie, also starring Arsenio Hall, Jermaine Fowler, James Earl Jones, Tracy Morgan, KiKi Layne, Shari Headley and Teyana Taylor, will hit cinemas on 5 April.
