Mabu is the debut collection from Mabu49, which was officially launched at the Spring/Summer South African Fashion Week in 2011. Mabu is my mother’s name, and it is a Pedi/Northern Sotho (a South African language) word meaning ‘mother of the earth’. Thus my mother and her effortless style in the 1970s have inspired this collection. The recurring print, engraved in leather, and printed on chiffon, is derived from wave rock formations, and it is an ode to the position that my mother plays in the family – the rock of the family.