09 Aug 2017

Beyond the glaring media attention, the annual President’s Day Art competitions are all about celebrating people.

It is about dance, song, rhythm, consume, sculpture, painting, comedy, photography and all that celebrate creativity.

It is about emotions, sad, cheerful and laughter.

Above all, it is about attempts to outdo each other and walk away with the biggest prize.

Meet Mr Mmoloki Letsebe, a few among those who were entangled in this trajectory of emotions yet managed to have the last laugh.

“The feelings were high, I was happy with the outcome,” said the 2017 President’s Day Art Competitions winner of the best in the dressmaking category.

It has been a long journey for the Ramotswa-born fashion designer who is now engrossed in the same business with his sibling, Itumeleng. 

Twice he tried and twice he failed.

His first entrance was in 2015 and he traversed all the way until the national, but he was not good enough to be numbered among the best.

The following year, all he could manage was a disappointing regional level elimination, but he had gained some positive feedback.

All the hurdles endured were not enough to halt his intention of having his name inscribed among the best in the land.

“I had learnt a lot, this year I got position one at the regional level and the national level,” said an elated Mr Letsebe.

“This award means a lot to me, people will start to notice that there is Mmoloki Letsebe in Ramotswa,” stated the shy looking fashion designer who graduated with a National Craft Certificate (NCC) from Ramatea Vocational Training College in 2010.

From Ramatea, he partnered with his elder brother to start Conquerors Designers, which today has about four employees and has been financed through the Youth Development Fund.

The business has been improving steadily and has managed to withstand the stiff market which has seen some of the youth owned government funded projects shutting down.

“These award will market my business,” said Mr Letsebe who raked in a whopping P10 000 for his efforts.

The funds will go towards the running of the business, which is experiencing the normal winter season slump.

With over five years in business, Mr Letsebe knows that the winter season is the time that business gets slow, especially that his business deals mostly with wedding garments.

And he hopes that the award will spur him to extraordinary heights, and one of those would be to stage a fashion show in Ramotswa.

Though he aspires to keep the award next year, Mr Letsebe is aware that the task will not be smooth, especially that it had eluded him for the past two years.

“This year I had to raise standards and I had learned that one cannot win with ordinary things,” he added.

Furthermore, he believes that heeding the advise from the Ministry of Youth Empowerment, Sport and Culture Development workshops, which stressed quality and certainty helped a lot.

Apart from gaining experience from workshops, Mr Letsebe believes engaging with fellow fashion designers has had a huge contribution to his win as they shared best practices and trends. ENDS