MaXhosa Africa will be honouring ancestors during Saturday’s presentation of the Paris Fashion Week Spring/Summer 2026 collection at the Lycée Saint-Louis-de-Gonzague in Paris.
The Xhosa knitwear brand will be showcased alongside global collections such as Hermès and Balenciaga.
Titled Izipho Zabadala (Gifts For the Ancestors), MaXhosa Africa is the only South African luxury fashion house and African-based brand on the official Paris Fashion Week schedule – officially commemorated by the Fédération de la Haute Couture et de la Mode (FHCM) – representing the African continent on the world’s most prominent fashion platform.
“This collection stands as our heartfelt offering of gratitude to the wisdom, creativity, and heritage passed down by our elders,” explained MaXhosa founder and chief designer Laduma Ngxokolo. “It’s a retrospective look at what we have been creating over the past 15 years. Every garment speaks across time, weaving past, present and future together – a bridge connecting the living with the ancestral realm.
“These pieces act as antennas – vessels through which we honour our ancestors, showing them that their gifts endure, carried forward to advance culture, in imagining how they might be adorned in the ancestral world.”
A moment of silence to honour South Africa’s ambassador to France, Nathi Mthethwa, who died this week in Paris, will mark the beginning of each of the three scheduled fashion presentations.
This will be the Mzansi fashion brand’s fourth season on the official PFW schedule, and is expected to display a vibrant, colourful collection of 3D patterns in a retrospective look of culture and community.
MaXhosa has dressed renowned personalities like Michelle Obama, Beyoncé, Alicia Keys, Lauren Hill, Boity, Maglera Doe Boy and Zozibini Tunzi.
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