Threading culture into design
Otlarongwa Kgweetsi | Thursday June 12, 2025 09:40
From her beginnings in Tonota to national recognition and a regional invitation to Swakop Fashion Week, the 39-year-old designer has spent the last two decades refining a craft that draws meaning from more than fabric and stitches. Her introduction to the trade came in 2005, not through formal education, but through hands-on work under an established tailor.
For 11 years, she worked behind the scenes, absorbing the unspoken codes of the sewing room, precision, patience, and practice. In 2016, she opened her studio in Francistown, marking a new chapter in a career that had, until then, unfolded in the shadows. The studio, known simply as Mosenki Fashion, was built with the support of the Youth Development Fund (YDF). The process was not smooth. “When I first started this project, nothing seemed to move the way I wanted. I had to use my savings while waiting for funding. It was not a walk in the park,” she said. The losses she incurred early on tested her resolve, but she describes those years not with bitterness, but with reflection. “It was a learning curve,” she added.
It is not only the garments that have taken shape under her needle. So too has a growing recognition within Botswana’s creative circles. The same year she launched her studio, she entered the Presidential Arts Competitions in the Dressmaking category and emerged in first place at the national level. She would later repeat this outcome in the Gender Affairs Northern Women’s Exposition, taking top position across Levels 1 to 3. Though based in Francistown, her designs have travelled further than she has. Pageant contestants have worn her creations, and she was once commissioned to produce Botswana’s 50th independence merchandise for the country’s Embassy in Zimbabwe. These assignments have less to do with commerce and more with her ability to interpret identity through design. “It tells who we are. It brings the reality of Batswana to the world to show how people dress in Botswana and what we are made of.” She said. Her invitation to showcase at Swakop Fashion Week in 2023 was, in many ways, an affirmation of what had already become clear within Botswana; her work occupies a space where tradition and contemporary fashion intersect. Without shouting slogans, her clothing carries visual cues of culture, tailored into garments for a modern audience.
Her approach to design has evolved with time. Initially focused on women’s clothing, she now creates men’s wear, wedding attire, and custom formalwear. This expansion was not the product of trend-following but of practical observation. “My clients are diverse. Their needs change. I had to adapt,” she said. Still, she insists that fashion, for her, is not about speed or spectacle. The work is methodical, built on discipline and an understanding that design must respond to both the body and the culture it dresses. She explained that patience is essential. Clients change their minds often and you have to listen more than you speak. Mosenki’s aspirations continue to stretch beyond national borders. She has expressed interest in collaborating with designers in South Africa, specifically with a designer named Ashley, whose work she respects for its technical precision and aesthetic depth. But her ambitions are grounded.
She is not chasing status, she is observing, adapting, and designing with the steady hands of someone who has stitched her way through both struggle and success. In an industry that often celebrates visibility over substance, Mosenki’s story offers a quieter narrative, one in which culture is not merely referenced in fashion but is part of the fabric itself.