Rich Mnisi

Rich Mnisi’s broad design vision embraces fashion and functional sculpture. His work flows according to the themes and motifs he returns to and continually pushes forward: the women in his life, queerness, and his Va T songa heritage. The resulting pieces area bold exploration of shape and fluidity, brought to life through vivid contrasts of forms and materials, including bronze, wool, resin, and glass. Mnisi was born and raised in Johannesburg in 1991and graduated from the LISOF School ofFashion in 2014, after which he was named Africa Fashion International Young Designer of theYear. He founded his eponymous label in 2015, creating genderless, seasonless collections infused with his personal narrative. Mnisi’s foray into functional art began as a homage to his late great-grandmother, an ever-present guardian whose teachings have lived on in his family through multigenerational storytelling. When designing, Mnisi frees himself from received assumptions of base features and functionality.Rather than being led by ideas of how an object should look, his approach is organic, drawing from natural forms and memory. Mnisi lives and works inJohannesburg