The House
Since ’99.
Still Cutting.
Twenty-seven years of exotic leather out of East London, Eastern Cape — and a long way from home.
Our Company
A Manufacturing House,
Not A Label.
Asekho Twaku Leather & Clothing has been making high-fashion leather goods and clothing since 1999 — over twenty-five years of it, out of East London in the Eastern Cape. Belts, handbags, travel bags, women’s bags, men’s wallets, footwear, clothing lines, and leather upholstery, all manufactured in-house.
The brand draws on two South African traditions: the footwear industries of Durban and the handbag industries of Cape Town. To keep the work current we collaborate with international schools of design in Brazil and Italy — which is why a bag cut in East London can hold its own in Casablanca or Milan.
The materials are exotic: ostrich, crocodile, lizard and elephant, alongside game skins — Nguni, zebra and springbok. Every piece carries something of where it has been. The travel is not decoration; it is where the designs come from.
International Recognition
Shown Well
Outside East London.
Over the years the collections have been shown on platforms inside and outside Africa — fashion weeks in Morocco and Ethiopia, and trade platforms across four continents.
- MoroccoInternational Morocco Fashion Week, Casablanca — Salon International du Cuir, March 2019
- EthiopiaFashion week showcase
- FranceParis
- BrazilFrancal Feiras, São Paulo
- RussiaMosshoes, Moscow
- Hong KongCentre Stage
- United KingdomLondon
- Middle EastGifts & Lifestyle, Dubai
- United StatesFootwear, New York
The Record
What Happened, In Order.
- 1999
Asekho Twaku Leather & Clothing opens in East London, Eastern Cape.
- Along the way
Design collaboration with international schools of design in Brazil and Italy; the work draws on the footwear industries of Durban and the handbag industries of Cape Town.
- 2019
International Morocco Fashion Week, Casablanca — showing at the Salon International du Cuir, 28–31 March.
- Today
Three sites in East London: sales and administration on Vincent Road, the main factory on Settlers Way, and an extension factory at Fort Jackson Industrial Park.
Socio-Economic Empowerment
Skills, Transferred.
The house is deliberately a training floor as well as a factory. The skills transfer programme puts youth and women from East London and Mdantsane on the machines — cutting, stitching, finishing — and into work.
The mission is plain: more employment in the surrounding areas of East London, and a trade that stays in the Eastern Cape rather than leaving it.