Laurinda Ndenzako is an Angolan-Australian creative based in Naarm/ Melbourne, and the Creative Director and co-founder of Collective Closets. Established in 2016 alongside her sister Fatuma, the independent fashion label explores contemporary design through African textiles and thoughtful collaborations with Kenyan artisans, bringing together fashion, storytelling and cultural exchange.
Since launching Collective Closets, Laurinda and Fatuma have shared their work through Melbourne Fashion Week, collaborated with ACMI on its Goddess: Power, Glamour, Rebellion exhibition, and featured in the National Gallery of Victoria’s Melbourne Now exhibition. Alongside these milestones, they’ve continued to grow Collective Closets as a slow fashion label centred on thoughtful design, collaboration and celebrating the stories behind the textiles they work with.
In this Colour Box Studio interview, Ndenzako shares how Collective Closets came to be, the inspiration behind the label, and why taking time to reflect is an important part of her creative practice. She also speaks about the influence of her late mother, the value of working collaboratively, and the importance of creating with intention.
Tell us a little bit about yourself and what you do.
I’m Laurinda Ndenzako, Creative Director and co-founder of Collective Closets- a Melbourne-based slow fashion label I built with my sister Fatuma in 2016. We design contemporary womenswear rooted in African textile heritage, working with fabrics like the Maasai Shúkà and collaborating directly with Kenyan artisans. We’ve had the privilege of collaborating with some incredible institutions along the way- ACMI, NGV, Melbourne Fashion Week- and right now we’re in a really intentional season of stepping back, reflecting, and deciding what our next chapter looks like.
How did you start your creative practice and why?
Before Collective Closets there was Grandma’s Finest Vintage- we sourced, reworked and sold thrifted vintage pieces at markets- I loved it! And at some point the question kept coming from friends and family: why don’t you make your own? Create from start to finish?
We knew we wanted to create a brand rooted in celebrating our dual heritage as African Australians. So we asked ourselves -what fabric does that justice?
My husband is Kenyan, and a trip to Nairobi gave us the opportunity to really sit with that question and go looking for the answer. We weren’t rushed. We moved through the fabric markets deliberately, searching for something that felt true. And then we found the shúkà- the cloth of the Maasai people of Kenya. To us it represents raw beauty, resilience, power and strength. That was the one.
We are Angolan-Australian, not Kenyan- and that distinction matters to us. The continent of Africa is vast and deserves specificity, not generalisation. What we found in Kenya was a specific fabric, with a specific culture and history, made by artisans whose craft we deeply respect. Celebrating them transparently is not a side note. It is central to everything we do.
Our late mother Stella was a seamstress from Angola. She knew that what you wear carries meaning. Collective Closets is our way of honouring her, honouring the artisans we work alongside, and celebrating what it means to be women of African heritage building something contemporary and beautiful right here in Melbourne.
Where did you grow up and how has it influenced your practice?
We grew up in Melbourne’s West as Angolan-Australian women, and that dual identity is the engine of everything we make. Being from the African diaspora means you’re always holding two worlds at once – and rather than trying to resolve that tension, we’ve leaned into it completely. The dual heritage isn’t background noise for Collective Closets. It’s the entire story.
Tell us about your past creative projects. What has been your most treasured creation and highlight so far?
There have been so many pinch-me moments. Creating an exclusive collection for ACMI’s Goddess:
Power, Glamour, Rebellion exhibition. Being featured in the NGV’s Melbourne Now alongside Melbourne’s most innovative independent designers. Our collaboration with Mozambican artist Mafalda Vasconcelos- a genuine conversation between fashion, fine art and African spirituality. The Maasai Shúkà tote with Market Lane Coffee, born from neighbouring shops at the Queen Victoria Market and the totes we created for Melbourne Fashion Week a few years ago.
But the most treasured thing is always simpler than any of that. It’s a woman putting on a Collective Closets piece and feeling something she didn’t expect- seen, celebrated, beautiful. That never gets old.
Tell us about your current project ?
We’re on a creative hiatus – and we’re saying that openly and without apology. For the first time we are taking a real pause: looking at our ecosystem, examining our supply chain, and seriously exploring moving our production to Kenya. We’re also doing the deeper creative work of asking ourselves what we truly want the next chapter of Collective Closets to look like. It’s not stagnation. It’s intention. We’re taking our time, and we’ll come back with something we’re genuinely proud of.
Who or what inspires your practice?
Our mother Stella, always- she’s in the fabric of this, quite literally. The Kenyan artisans who have been our collaborators, not just suppliers, from the very beginning. The women who wear our pieces and carry those stories out into the world. And the African continent itself- not as a monolith, but in its specificity, its depth, its extraordinary creative talent. There is so much inspiration there that the world is still catching up to.
Where do you feel most creative and why?
I have a room in my home that I’ve decorated entirely around the things I love- and it is fully, unapologetically me. Beautiful artwork, books, magazines with Black women on the cover, gorgeous garments hanging, my sewing machine in the corner. It’s warm, eclectic and full of personality- trinkets from my travels in New York, LA, Bali and Kenya, thrifted treasures everywhere you look. It’s a space that holds everything I am as a creative and gives me the freedom to think, make and just be. That room has quietly held some of our best ideas.
What do you hope audiences take from your work?
We want people to feel the joy in our pieces- because that joy is deliberate. Our clothes are a celebration of how Black women see ourselves- joyful, powerful, resilient, layered. We are not one thing and our pieces reflect that. There is complexity in what we make, and there is also lightness. There is cultural depth and there is pure, unashamed pleasure in getting dressed.
We want every woman who wears Collective Closets to feel like the full version of herself. Not an edited-down, palatable version- the whole thing. The history, the heritage, the humour, the softness, the strength. All of it present in a single garment.
Beyond that, we hope people walk away with a deeper appreciation for the African continent- how vast it is, how immersive the textiles are, how extraordinary the creative talent is. The narrative around African fashion is still being written in the mainstream, and we take seriously the responsibility of being part of that conversation. Our pieces are one small window into something much, much bigger. We want people to feel curious enough to look further.
Because when you wear something made with this much intention- fabric sourced deliberately, artisans honoured transparently, a woman’s story stitched into every seam- you’re not just getting dressed. You’re participating in something. And that, to us, is what fashion at its best has always been capable of.
What gets you through creative challenges or tough industry times?
Stopping. Pausing. Coming up for air. The fashion industry is relentless and it will absolutely swallow you if you let it. We’ve learnt to ask ourselves- who are we and what are we rooted in? Because it’s very easy to follow what everyone else is doing and lose yourself completely in the process. Stepping away is an art, and you have to be intentional about it. Having a personality outside of your brand matters. Having hobbies that are just for play- not for content, not for the business- that’s what replenishes you. We are LEARNING to protect that fiercely.
Whose work are you digging at the moment?
Gloria Chol, without question. She is the founder of By Gloria Chol, Australia’s first South Sudanese–owned luxury fashion house- where ancestry, artistry and global excellence converge. She has a very bright future ahead and I am watching closely.
I’m also so inspired by KingKing- a Blak-owned label led by Gurindji/Waanji sisters Sarrita and Tarisse King. Their collection Calling From Country began as original artworks by the sisters, translated into fashion. Bold, contemporary, grounded in thousands of years of culture. Exactly the kind of work that reminds you what fashion can actually do.
And on the photography side -Thomas Suleiman Tumaini. He’s a Congolese, Melbourne-based fashion, commercial and editorial photographer who grew up in Nairobi. His work centres high fashion, colour, shape and texture, moving between digital and analogue with a beautiful, distinctive film quality.
Everything he shoots feels alive. He is exceptional, a gift to the world- I am so obsessed with him.
Where can we find and follow you online?
Find us on Instagram at @collectiveclosets – that’s where the collections, the collaborations and the life of the brand lives. But if you want to get a real glimpse of who we are beyond the brand — the personalities, the people, the founders behind it all- come find us personally. I’m at @aunty.ri.ri and my sister Fatuma is at @fatumandenzako. We have personality. We promise it’s worth the follow.
Our website is currently taking a much needed refresh — watch this space.
All images provided by the artist.
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