In his workshop stocked with piles of fabric and sewing machines, Sonwabile Ndamase is proud that the Madiba shirts he designed for Nelson Mandela 30 years ago endure as a legacy of South Africa’s first democratically elected leader.
Worn untucked and without a jacket, the loose Madiba shirts remain a favorite among South African politicians, making a statement 10 years after Mandela’s death.
Madiba is the clan name by which Mandela became known in South Africa.
Photo: AFP
Ndamase’s clients include South African President Cyril Ramaphosa, as well as former South African presidents Thabo Mbeki and Jacob Zuma. The country’s political and business elite — including ministers, government spokespeople and local politicians — regularly place orders. Even former US president Bill Clinton and boxing great Mike Tyson have a Madiba shirt.
“Anybody who wants to live a Mandela legacy or who wants to live Mandela ethos in life, guess what they are doing? They will go and pick up Madiba shirts,” Ndamase said.
The jovial 64-year-old designer recalls when he was contacted by Winnie Mandela soon after the apartheid government released her husband from prison in 1990. Having spent 27 years in jail, the hero of the fight against white-minority rule and South Africa’s soon-to-be president needed new clothes.
Photo: AFP
Ndamase met Nelson Mandela in his home in Johannesburg’s Soweto.
“He started to tell me that he wanted something that could look conservative enough for him to go and address the captains of industry and ... then also to address the masses without having to change,” he said.
Nelson Mandela wanted a style that would make him stand out among other statesmen and did not require a tie.
The self-taught designer came up with the loose-fitting, casual-but-smart silk shirts with bold patterns that are associated with Nelson Mandela even after his death in 2013 at the age of 95. The shirts often feature oriental-style patterns. Some boast deep colors such as burgundy, dark gray and royal blue, with playful designs; others are of cooler, tan hues, depicting elements from nature such as leaves or twigs.
All are recognizable as the signature Nelson Mandela look. It is a style that Ndamase, who had a mild stroke in March, is passing on to a new generation of garment-makers.
The jocular designer — whose perfect impersonation of Nelson Mandela is a testament to their time spent together — is taking his know-how to New York in September to host a masterclass for young designers.
On the same trip, he plans to showcase his Vukani brand’s new collection at an event for celebrity and elite buyers that is to pay tribute to the 30 years of democracy since South Africa’s first democratic election in 1994.
The collection takes on a more casual, loungewear aesthetic, a breakaway from his usual style, Ndamase said.
The occasion is to feature in a documentary by a US-based filmmaker about Ndamase’s career.
Sporting a gray goatee, Ndamase laughs off the many other designers who claim to have pioneered the Madiba shirt or sell versions resembling his own, which today cost about 1,800 rands (US$100) apiece.
Once described by the late Winnie Mandela as “part of the furniture,” he said never wanted to use the Mandela name for commercial purposes.
“I dressed one generation to another,” he said. “The relationship I had was a family relationship.”
Nvidia Corp’s demand for advanced packaging from Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) remains strong though the kind of technology it needs is changing, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) said yesterday, after he was asked whether the company was cutting orders. Nvidia’s most advanced artificial intelligence (AI) chip, Blackwell, consists of multiple chips glued together using a complex chip-on-wafer-on-substrate (CoWoS) advanced packaging technology offered by TSMC, Nvidia’s main contract chipmaker. “As we move into Blackwell, we will use largely CoWoS-L. Of course, we’re still manufacturing Hopper, and Hopper will use CowoS-S. We will also transition the CoWoS-S capacity to CoWos-L,” Huang said
Nvidia Corp CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) is expected to miss the inauguration of US president-elect Donald Trump on Monday, bucking a trend among high-profile US technology leaders. Huang is visiting East Asia this week, as he typically does around the time of the Lunar New Year, a person familiar with the situation said. He has never previously attended a US presidential inauguration, said the person, who asked not to be identified, because the plans have not been announced. That makes Nvidia an exception among the most valuable technology companies, most of which are sending cofounders or CEOs to the event. That includes
TARIFF TRADE-OFF: Machinery exports to China dropped after Beijing ended its tariff reductions in June, while potential new tariffs fueled ‘front-loaded’ orders to the US The nation’s machinery exports to the US amounted to US$7.19 billion last year, surpassing the US$6.86 billion to China to become the largest export destination for the local machinery industry, the Taiwan Association of Machinery Industry (TAMI, 台灣機械公會) said in a report on Jan. 10. It came as some manufacturers brought forward or “front-loaded” US-bound shipments as required by customers ahead of potential tariffs imposed by the new US administration, the association said. During his campaign, US president-elect Donald Trump threatened tariffs of as high as 60 percent on Chinese goods and 10 percent to 20 percent on imports from other countries.
INDUSTRY LEADER: TSMC aims to continue outperforming the industry’s growth and makes 2025 another strong growth year, chairman and CEO C.C. Wei says Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), a major chip supplier to Nvidia Corp and Apple Inc, yesterday said it aims to grow revenue by about 25 percent this year, driven by robust demand for artificial intelligence (AI) chips. That means TSMC would continue to outpace the foundry industry’s 10 percent annual growth this year based on the chipmaker’s estimate. The chipmaker expects revenue from AI-related chips to double this year, extending a three-fold increase last year. The growth would quicken over the next five years at a compound annual growth rate of 45 percent, fueled by strong demand for the high-performance computing
RSS