Designer Lebese carves a name for herself

GASEBALWE SERETSE
Staff Writer | Friday September 17, 2010 00:00

Despite her humble education, this gifted craftswoman has carved a name for herself as she is today a leading traditional clothes designer.

Born a year before independence into a rural family who did not seem to attach much importance to education, the petite Lebese was destined to be a subsistence farmer like the rest of her family. Unfortunately for her, she was the eldest child and despite her gender, she was expected to look after the family 'fortune' - the few herd of cattle and goats. Under normal circumstances, a boy would have been expected to perform those duties, but her brother was still too young for the energy-sapping task.

Before she could finish her Standard Three, her parents decided to pull her out of school.

'I was taken to Rantala lands in the outskirts of Gabane where I started herding family goats and cattle,' she told Arts& Culture is an interview. Life out there in the bush posed a lot of dangers for the girl but somehow she managed to bear the eight years she spent in the hostile environment.

After close to a decade in the bush, Lebese thought to herself that she could no longer be made to be a herd-girl and her rebellious streak came out and she fled to the city of Gaborone in 1985.

She asserted that it was not only the bright lights that beckoned but young men as well and in the process she fell pregnant and gave birth to three children.

Soon after arriving in Gaborone, she joined Kgalagadi Game Skin where she learnt leather tanning. Lebese spent a number of years working for the company because, according to her, there was 'nothing else I could do'.

Armed with her leather tanning skills, she decided to try something on her own - and Lebese Leatherworks was born. In 2001 she got a grant from the now defunct Financial Assistance Policy (FAP) to buy three machines and the following year, she started operating.

One of the challenges that she encountered was that she operated from home, which had no electricity then.

'Using a generator meant that I had to spend a lot of money on fuel to keep it running, which was a serious challenge for me. It also meant that I could not do any business at night since it made too much noise for my neighbours,' she said.

The determined entrepreneur decided to move to a place at Arma Motors but she just spent a few months there because power supply was erratic. 

A few months later, she moved to her present place near Mogoditshane.

The talented Lebese is able to make a wide range of items including bras, skirts, blouses, dresses, handbags, hats, shorts, and waistcoats.

Because she is good at making gear for traditional dancers, she is popular with many traditional dance groups in the country.

One of the popular contemporary traditional dance groups that use her services is Culture Spears, whose lead singer Magdeline Losolebe popped in during Lebese's interview with Arts& Culture to place an order.

She said that she has also received a lot of orders from Tswana traditional dance groups from South Africa. The gifted woman asserted that South African Batswana, especially those from the North West and Gauteng provinces, are among her best customers. She has even been invited to take part in a show in the neighbouring country.

Lebese has also been approached by various couples to design 'second attires' for their weddings. According to the local lingo, second attires are the 'African clothes' that the bride and her groom wear after parading their Western-style wedding clothes.

She has also been commissioned to make fabric uniforms for the likes of Jamal Trading Company, the Department of Meteorology and the Central Transport Organisation (CTO) in Gaborone.

She happily talked about a client - a soldier from Bokalaka area - who came to her place to order a set of traditional dance gear for his former school. According to her, the soldier was so impressed with the quality of clothes that she produced that he went back to her and made another order for a group of army colleagues.

In 2008, this formidable woman snatched first prize under her category in the Annual Women's Exposition. Sadly in 2009, she was not able to take part but this year she repeated hear feat and took the first position in level two of her category.

Despite her obvious talent, she has admitted that she has serious challenges when it comes to cash flow because it is not everyday that people get to order skin clothes even though when she gets them, they have to be a good and rewarding orders.

Leather is expensive, she told Arts& Culture, adding that she feels apprehensive when it comes to telling her customers that they have to pay more because 'I would not like to lose them'.

When this writer warned her that she seemed to be under-pricing her products, she admitted that one of her customers had made a similar observation and offered to help her adjust her pricing.

Lebese was recently taken ill, forcing her to temporarily lay off her employees. However, she is hopeful that soon she will get an order that will enable her to rehire them.

Arts& Culture also noticed that Lebese has potential to make it big, but she has not been able to exploit that because she talked of many business opportunities that have gone begging.

At the moment, she is hoping to export her products to various neighbouring countries and her greatest hope is that government departments and parastatals tasked with that will help her achieve that dream.