Clothes Minded

Oct 10 2024 3 ep. 29 mins 78

Clothes Minded Podcast artwork

Clothes Minded is a podcast about decoding the language of fashion through the African lens. Host, Khensani Mohlatlole, a South African writer, sustainable fashion advocate and designer, explores the layers of history, culture, identity and politics woven into our wardrobes with insights from African designers, artisans, academics and industry insiders.

Arts Society & Culture

Copy RSS

Subscribe on Podcast Addict

Crimes of Fashion: Free Black Women in 18th Century Cape Town

Oct 10 2024 12 mins

Imagine looking so good that it becomes illegal. Despite the excess of wealth, glamour and spectacle available to the settler elite in 18th century Cape Town, their biggest sartorial competition came from the 118 emancipated women of colour in the Dutch Cape Colony. In 1765, sumptuary laws were introduced, prohibiting these women from coloured silks, fine laces, adorned bonnets and

Embroidery in Apartheid

Jun 14 2024 58 mins

Beauty can be a knife and beauty can be a shield. In this episode, we explore the history of embroidery from Palestine to South Africa and their shared threads in documenting and resisting apartheid, uncovering the role of needlecraft in fashioning identity and healing communities. Khensani is joined by Lina Barkawi, a practitioner of traditional Palestinian embroidery (tatreez) wh

Africa has no Fashion.

May 25 2024 16 mins

Welcome to Clothes Minded, a show about African history, identity and meaning told through the language of fashion. As the Ghanaian artist, El Anatsui put it: “Cloth is to Africans what monuments are to Westerners.” Join Khensani Mohlatlole as she begins a quest to uncover the cathedrals for those with eyes to see woven into the literal fabric of our lives. Follow Khensani on