Breathing Stories: The Wearable Art of Panashe Mafoti

Breathing Stories: The Wearable Art of Panashe Mafoti

Some people stumble into creativity.

Others trip over it, fight it, negotiate with it.

And then there are those who breathe it.

Panashe Mafoti doesn’t remember a moment when creativity began for her, because for her, it never arrived with a grand announcement. It simply existed, quietly and constantly, like breath in the lungs. Fashion was never a “cute little hobby,” never something to outgrow. It was instinct. It was language. It was survival.

But in 2022, something clicked.

Not loudly. Not dramatically.

Just honestly.

She realised that what she truly loves is storytelling.

After years of studying stories through history books, absorbing narratives through films, and observing the world with an artist’s patience, Panashe came to a gentle but powerful truth: I am a storyteller, and I want to do this for life. Right now, that storytelling takes the form of fashion, wearable art that speaks, questions, remembers, and reimagines.

Her brand, Inomusainkosi, is not a separate entity she puts on when she’s “working.” It is her name. Her inheritance. Her testimony.

Given to her by her Ndebele mother after the heartbreak of miscarriage, Inomusainkosi carries the weight of survival, grace, and divine timing. It is a reminder that she exists against the odds, born through God’s mercy, carrying purpose before she could even articulate it. Faith, culture, identity, and personal history do not sit outside her brand; they are stitched into its very seams.

And then came MERAKI.

Not during a runway applause.

Not under flashing lights.

But quietly, while removing the first piece from the washing machine.

That moment, simple and sacred, marked the beginning of Panashe’s true awakening as an artist. MERAKI wasn’t just a project; it was a threshold. A crossing. A declaration that this work was no longer about making clothes, but about making meaning.

Being a Zimbabwean creative, however, is not romantic in practice.

The lack of opportunities and creative spaces forces many artists to create from absence rather than abundance. Yet somehow, Panashe has transformed this limitation into her superpower. Creating from lack sharpened her mind, stretched her imagination, and taught her how to think beyond the box, especially when no box was offered in the first place.

Her work refuses confinement.

Her ideas do not ask permission.

At the heart of everything she creates is a quiet philosophy: “Therefore I am, therefore we are.”

Her art speaks genius, not as arrogance, but as shared humanity. It reminds us that brilliance is not reserved for a chosen few. That we are more than our geography, more than our beginnings. That every person deserves to be seen in the fullness of their humanness.

To encounter Inomusainkosi is to encounter a mirror. One that says: I am a genius, and so are you.

And perhaps that is Panashe Mafoti’s greatest gift, not just fashion that adorns the body, but stories that clothe the soul.