Cape Town’s cultural landscape has gained a striking new addition with the opening of Magugu House Cape Town at Mount Nelson, A Belmond Hotel. Conceived in collaboration with celebrated South African designer Thebe Magugu, the new space is imagined as far more than a concept store: it is a platform for fashion, art and creative exchange, designed to bring contemporary African expression into vivid conversation with one of the city’s most iconic addresses.
The opening forms part of a landmark collaboration between Magugu and Mount Nelson, timed to mark the ten-year anniversary of the designer’s fashion house. Alongside the launch of Magugu House Cape Town, the partnership also includes the unveiling of the private Thebe Magugu Suite a two-storey Afro-modernist retreat on Palm Avenue that extends the designer’s visual language into the realm of hospitality.
At the heart of the new venture is its inaugural exhibition, “By Our Own Hands”, presented in partnership with Southern Guild and co-curated by Thebe Magugu and contemporary African art specialist Julia Buchanan. Bringing together the work of Zanele Muholi and Zizipho Poswa alongside Magugu’s own exploration of fashion as ritual practice, the exhibition reflects on making as an act of authorship, healing and resistance. Each artist, in different ways, approaches material, adornment and process as carriers of lineage, spirit and self-sovereignty.
That framing gives the project a significance that reaches beyond retail or display. Magugu House Cape Town positions creativity itself as a living cultural force — one rooted in African histories while actively shaping contemporary identity. The setting feels particularly resonant at Mount Nelson, a hotel long associated with elegance and legacy, now opening its doors even wider to new forms of dialogue and cultural production. This is not simply a branded space, but an invitation into a broader creative universe.
In an earlier statement about the project, Magugu described the space in terms that speak directly to that ambition: “Magugu House Cape Town heroes African luxury: refined, forward-looking yet rooted in culture. It is a space where the past, present, and imagined future of Africa exist in dialogue - an intersection of heritage and innovation.”
For visitors, the experience is both immediate and accessible. “By Our Own Hands” is open from now until the end of April 2026, running Tuesday to Saturday from 10h00 to 18h00, with no reservations required, at Mount Nelson, 76 Orange Street, Gardens, Cape Town.
In a city already rich with design and artistic talent, Magugu House Cape Town feels like an important new chapter — one that places African creativity, collaboration and cultural authorship firmly at the centre of the conversation.
Credits
Images: Supplied
