Katlego Sekhu
When Anointing Lukola left film school in Cape Town to return home to Durban during lockdown, she wasn’t planning to start a business. She was helping her parents cover bills. Then, scrolling online one day, she came across a beaded bag and thought she could make one herself.
She bought the beads and taught herself the craft. A month later, she wore the bag she had made to a wedding, and people would not stop asking where she got it. When she told them she had made it herself, some did not believe her.
That bag became the foundation of Mayaka Accessories, an Afrocentric brand of handcrafted beaded handbags, every piece made from scratch by Lukola.
Speaking to Fresh and Thato on Kaya Breakfast’s Creator’s Corner, Lukola explained that her connection to beadwork actually stretches back further than that first bag. In primary school arts and culture classes, she and her classmates made a beaded brooch shaped like the school emblem, earning five rand for each one made. It is the earliest memory she has of working with beads, though she did not touch them again until that lockdown moment years later.
The wedding where it all changed happened almost by accident. It was cold, so Lukola and her mother stepped into a nearby hotel for hot chocolate while they waited for the rest of the guests. She placed her bag on the table, and people kept stopping to ask about it.
“I would just say, well, I made it. And some people thought I was lying,” she recalled. She had photos and videos of herself making the bag, which she used as proof. Her mother was the first to suggest it could be a business, telling her, “I’m so proud of you. This is so beautiful. You know, this could be a business, right?”
Even so, Lukola did not launch immediately. “Me being the perfectionist that I am, I didn’t launch immediately,” she said. She spent months refining the craft before starting Mayaka Accessories online on 31 January 2022, four months after that first wedding.
Pricing was one of the hardest parts. With a film background and no business training, Lukola had never had to factor labour into a price before. “It’s very hard to price a product that is made by you or manufactured by you because you have to factor in labour prices, which is something I didn’t know before,” she said. She started out charging only for materials, treating the income as pocket money while she job hunted, until the demand became too frequent to ignore.
For the first two years of the brand, Lukola kept herself out of it entirely, too shy to say she was the owner. That changed as she began watching other creators show their faces online. “I do believe that people are interested in the story,” she said, adding that showing herself at work also helped reassure buyers wary of scams.
Mayaka Accessories was recently selected for the Woolworths Youth Makers Showcase at Mall of Africa, an opportunity Lukola describes as a turning point. “Being selected as a Woolworths Youth Maker has honestly been a huge milestone for Mayaka and myself because of the national exposure that we get,” she said.
Beyond the exposure, the association gave the brand credibility, introduced handcrafted beaded bags to thousands of new people, and connected her with mentors who helped prepare her for the showcase. It also opened doors in corporate gifting, where Mayaka has expanded into beaded coasters and keyrings.
For now, Mayaka Accessories operates online only, deliberately producing in limited quantities to protect quality as a slow fashion brand. The brand is exploring partnerships with boutiques and will launch an online store at the end of the month.
You can find Mayaka Accessories on social media.
To hear the full interview, listen to the podcast.
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