A bold new home for African creativity by Thebe Magugu.
Cape Town’s cultural landscape just levelled up.
In collaboration with Thebe Magugu, Mount Nelson has unveiled MAGUGU HOUSE CAPE TOWN – a dynamic concept store and creative hub dedicated to fashion, art and radical exchange. Think retail meets ritual, exhibition meets conversation. It’s a space where African creativity isn’t just showcased – it’s centred.
The launch is marked by the inaugural exhibition, “By Our Own Hands”, presented in partnership with Southern Guild and co-curated by Magugu alongside Contemporary African Art Specialist Julia Buchanan. On view until the end of April, the show brings together the powerful visual languages of Zanele Muholi and Zizipho Poswa, in dialogue with Magugu’s exploration of fashion as ritual practice.
Here, making becomes meaning. Material becomes memory. Adornment becomes authorship.
Across photography, sculpture and garment, each artist considers creation as an act of healing, resistance and self-sovereignty. Lineage and spirit run through every work – a reminder that what we make, makes us.
The Details
When: Now until the end of April
Times: Tuesday to Saturday, 10h00 – 18h00
Where: 76 Orange Street, Gardens, Cape Town
No reservations required.
MAGUGU HOUSE forms part of a landmark moment for Magugu, celebrating ten years of his fashion house. The collaboration also includes the unveiling of the private THEBE MAGUGU SUITE – a two-storey Afro-modernist sanctuary tucked along Palm Avenue at The Nellie.
Inside the suite, specially commissioned works extend Magugu’s universe into space itself, including A Reverence Like No Other (2025) by Mmangaliso Nzuza. The result is immersive and atmospheric – a living expression of the designer’s layered storytelling.
Why It Matters
Magugu, the first African designer to win the LVMH Prize in 2019, has built a global reputation for collections that weave sharp tailoring with political and cultural narrative. With MAGUGU HOUSE, that storytelling expands beyond the runway and into a permanent platform for dialogue.
And there’s something poetic about it unfolding at Mount Nelson – affectionately known as The Nellie – a hotel that has been part of Cape Town’s story since 1899, its iconic pink façade a symbol of optimism for over a century.
Fashion. Art. Memory. Exchange.
MAGUGU HOUSE CAPE TOWN is open – and it’s only the beginning.