Business: Siyababa Atelier
Siyabonga Mtshali

My name is Siyabonga Mtshali, a provocative young designer and creative entrepreneur hailing from the coast of KwaZulu Natal. I’m the founder and director of Siyababa Atelier a conceptual brand that pioneers in a new African avant-garde by marrying the two ideas of art and fashion drawing inspiration from black queer narratives.

Coming from a heteronormative background, western media was the only place I could seek African queer representation. My move to Johannesburg exposed me to different subcultures, making me realize how distorted the modern African, Queer, narrative, is in media.

Siyababa Atelier looks to change the depiction of how the world views the black queer body through the eyes of fashion and art changing the narrative that young kids can look up to, something I found I never had as a bisexual Zulu man.