Description
In the blazing heat of a South African summer a motley band of artists, students, and sympathisers went into the streets and alleys of cities across South Africa – Johannesburg, Cape Town, Soweto, Soshanguwe – and painted the orange, three-circled Magents logo on bridges, walls, rocks, in underpasses, in stations, in sports stadiums. And that’s where they left it. Three orange circles with no explanation generated a great deal of mystery. They went back every three months and added the other elements of the logo, the three men and the letter “G”. Then in 1999-2003 they began to place the product, a line of men and women’s apparel; in independent retailers. Launches of the brand followed in 2005 in France, Switzerland, Spain, Italy, Japan, Canada, Vietnam and the United States.
The core group decided to focus on the international market and ran the line out of Paris, France. This was followed by a total restructure that took them five years. They moved HQ down to Cape Town South Africa and launched their first sneaker collection in 2013, both in South Africa and parts of Europe.
The look of Magents was partly inspired by Mr Nelson Mandela’s adventurous outlook on dress code. Mr Mandela is famous for a certain style of shirt that signals his African-ness, but also points to his willingness to break with tradition, to set a trend, to move away from the past.
Magents is Afro Vintage; African in origin but inspired by the climate, the geography, the music, and the spirit of South Africa. The signature Magents t-shirt reflects the exploding talent of a new country, and the eagerness of South Africans to take risks and reinvent themselves. The brand reflects youth and sophistication. It is urban, street, edgy, but it also has the natural wildness of South Africa’s coastline and mountains in mind. It embraces the many cultures in South Africa, the country’s adventure lifestyle, its global savvy, and its spirit of independence.
