Her hats are not the type that you wear to cover up a bad hair day. Instead, these uniquely crafted headpieces radiate class and glamour, and will have all eyes on you as soon as you step into a room – which is exactly what the Eastern Cape-born milliner intends with her designs.
With her mother being a knitwear designer, author and a poet; her father a carpenter and motor mechanic, and her older brothers being visual artists – it was inevitable that Mandisa Cosa-Nkwenkwezi would also be drawn towards the arts. Starting out as a performing artist who has worked with names such as Gibson Kente and Mbongeni Ngema, this self-taught milliner found herself immersed in the world of fashion after creating her hat brand, which she named Nzwakazi Millinery.
“Nzwakazi is a Xhosa word for a beautiful woman of stature, who is classy, poised and carries herself with pride. Milliner refers to what I am: a person who creates and designs hats for women, so that’s how the name Nzwakazi Millinery came about,” she explains.
