Made in Africa.
Made by Africa.
Made for the world.
Our story
Mebala means colours in Setswana.
Conceived in 2017 and launched in early 2019, Mebala has been anchored on a bold design language, quality materials and expert craftsmanship. Coupled with a client centric-approach, our brand has been growing since inception. Our unique value proposition is threefold. Firstly, we offer custom-made designs in industry leading times, providing our clients with designs that are crafted to their preference and needs. Secondly, leveraging old and new technologies, we fuse fashion with innovation to ensure that our products have maximum use value for our clients. And finally, we use sustainable methods and materials, ensuring longevity in our products and minimizing fashion’s negative impact on the environment. The ultimate goal is to contribute to the new African narrative – in essence, to be part of the made in Africa campaign.
Mebala aims to create long-term sustainable socio-economic impact. Through manufacturing techniques that are labour-intensive, our processes maximize the job yield per unit production. And since 2017, we have trained over young people in design, crafting and business development.
About the founder
Mebala was founded by Tlhalefang Moeletsi in 2019 whilst still pursuing his PhD economics degree at Wits University and working as a digital economy consultant. In economics, his accolades including winning the Nedbank and Old Mutual Budget Speech Competition twice as well as being awarded the United Nations Special Youth Prize and the Economic Research Southern African Scholarship. He is also a Canon Collins scholar.
A born creative but accidental designer, Tlhalefang was compelled to launch Mebala when he saw that there wasn’t any brand offering clients with a convenient platform to access custom-made premium luggage and accessories. Tlhalefang saw a gap in the market in terms of establishing a manufacturing brand that would be based on a rapid mass customization business model. He also saw that most brands offered either functionality or style and wanted to introduce designs that would fuse fashion with innovation to offer both functionality and style. Leveraging his experience as an economist and international education in entrepreneurship, he navigated the brand with very little capital. He established Mebala using the lean start-up model and bootstrapped – going to the market with designs, improving them through iteration, launching new designs and constantly reinvesting profits into the business.
Even in fashion, he has continued his track record of excellence. In 2020, Tlhalefang was selected as an Emerging Creative and he exhibited Mebala to an international audience at the Design Indaba in Cape Town.
MEDIA FEATURES
We are grateful to the following media platforms who have shared the story of our made in African campaign
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