Fabric of sound: Old Khaki champions the hands behind the craft

Old Khaki has spent the last few months turning its second consecutive Cape Town International Jazz Festival sponsorship into something broader. Materials that Matter, a multi-year cultural platform, sets out to celebrate South African artists, athletes and the communities that shape them.

This vision came to life through a series of collaborations, performances and storytelling moments linked to this year’s Cape Town International Jazz Festival – creating spaces where talent, creativity and community intersect, and their stories can be told.

Sipho “Hotstix” Mabuse, Rorisang Sechele, Sibusiso “Mash” Mashiloane, SIO, Tutu Puoane and Vuyo McGlad each brought a distinct sound to Old Khaki’s pop-up activation at “Africa’s Grandest Gathering”, and each will be profiled under the Materials that Matter banner to explore the communities and experiences that shaped them.

Materials that Matter looks at the ways in which South African communities mould individual voices and nurture talent and excellence, and ties those stories back to the values Old Khaki has cultivated in its own business: local design, local manufacture, exceptional quality and an investment in the people who make the clothes.

“Materials that Matter is a long-term commitment to South African voices,” says Odile Hufkie, head of Marketing at Old Khaki. “We want to move from being a retail brand to a cultural activator telling the stories of our people, our places and our purpose.”

The First Chapter: Hotstix Mabuse

The platform’s opening chapter belongs to Hotstix (pictured). The man behind the hit “Burnout” and a five-decade catalogue of South African pop, jazz and protest music is an apt first subject.

Raised in Soweto within earshot of traditional healing ceremony drums and the political conversations of his parents’ generation, Mabuse describes his musical life as something he absorbed before he chose it.

“The two hours that you’re asking me to come and perform took me 56 years of everyday work,” he says. “You become a person because other people lifted you, other people embraced you, other people celebrated you.”

That’s what Materials that Matter has been created to explore: how years of experience and dedication to one’s craft are transformed into moments of transcendent self-expression, and how each person’s story expands into one of community.

Crafted the South African way

The same lens applies to Old Khaki’s brand journey. The brand sits within the Cape Union Mart group’s stable of lifestyle retailers and has built its identity on what it calls “signature essentials, crafted the South African way”: denims, chinos, golfers, knits, leathers and the comfortable register of a country at home in its informal uniform.

The entire Old Khaki range is designed in-house in Cape Town. Several styles are manufactured in South Africa, and Cape Union Mart’s internal design centre is integrally involved in their conception.

“Across retail floors and partner factories, Old Khaki and its supply network sustain livelihoods locally,” says Hufkie, “creating opportunities directly within our stores and indirectly through long-term supplier relationships.

“We’re a brand that has always understood itself through the people who make it possible: the cutters at our Green Thread manufacturing facility, the designers in our head office studio, the store teams who actually live the lifestyle the brand sells. Materials that Matter is, in many ways, holding a mirror up to our own supply chain,” she concludes.

For now, Old Khaki has used the Cape Town International Jazz Festival to show how the country’s most enduring artists, like its most enduring clothing, are products of place.

Old Khaki looks forward to continuing to shine the light on local communities, celebrate their stories and highlight their achievements through its Materials that Matter platform – where local identity becomes shared pride.