Kentse Masilo

What does your company do?

Kentse Masilo is a high end fashion brand that offers ready to wear and made to measure garments for women in Africa.

What is your biggest success?

I won a fashion competition called Project Runway season 1 which fastracked my career. Relocating to Johannesburg to open my studio in Sandton after the pandemic. I recently awarded the Forty under 40 fashion award 2023.

What has been your biggest hurdle?

My biggest hurdle has been raising capital to create more demand.The industry of fashion is very competitive and it is globally worth over 1 trillion dollars . I believe that African designers myself included do so much with so little what I mean by this is that we lack resources and artists that specialise in specific aspects of fashion. The technology has evolved over the years and yet we still find African designers that are still working with the basics which hinders growth. I was fortunate to exhibit in Paris in 2019 met international buyers who had demands none of the South African designers could meet at the time I felt a sense of disappointment because Africans don’t invest in fashion brands and that’s why most brands can’t compete on a international level. We need to produce quality and that requires time, skills and capital.