Mams fashion designer shares his passion for sustainable clothing
Jeanius became passionate about making clothing after learning to sew on his grandfather's sewing machine. Nowadays, he pursues sustainable fashion by repairing and repurposing old garments instead of them ending up in a landfill.
A young local fashion designer from Bavazon in Mamelodi East, known as ‘Jeanius’, has been passionate about fashion since he was 15 and hopes his work will inspire other local designers.
Katlego Babe (25) says he learned the fashion industry produces roughly 100 billion pieces a year and that many end up in landfills within a year. Seeing illegal dumping sites and discarded clothing around Mamelodi inspired him to pursue sustainable fashion – repairing and repurposing old garments to reduce waste and bring value back to clothing.
Today, he is known across Mamelodi for his designs and for promoting a local, waste-reducing approach to fashion.
His journey began in Mamelodi when he hand-altered his school trousers by adding drawstrings at the bottom so they would fit properly for crossing a small river on the way to school. Later, while at Noordwyk Secondary School, he approached the principal with a proposal to design sports uniforms and matric jackets.
Between 2017 and 2020, his grandfather taught him to operate a sewing machine. “I began sewing curtains for my grandmother,” Jeanius says. That experience led him to alter his own clothes, then neighbours’ garments, and eventually to shadow various designers in the area.
A friend of his grandfather who repairs sewing machines lent him equipment and showed him how to fix them, which helped him keep working.
In 2020, he enrolled in Fashion Design at the University of Johannesburg, but the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic and the shift to distance learning forced him to withdraw. On his birthday that year, he invested in his first sewing machine. During the gradual easing of lockdown, he made and sold masks, then returned to Mamelodi to focus on creating his own brand.
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