As part of our Women’s Month series, we’re continuing our conversations with women who have turned their creativity and passions into businesses of their own. This time, we sit down with fashion designer and VNTU founder Amanda Trom, whose work is shaped by her Pan-African worldview, and a commitment to inclusivity and sustainability.

For Amanda, these aren’t values she had to consciously build into VNTU, they were already part of how she saw and moved through the world. From growing up in a diverse Cape Town community to understanding sustainability through the everyday resourcefulness she witnessed her approach to fashion is deeply personal and intentional.

1. VINTU is deeply rooted in both your Zambian and South African heritage. Was there ever a point where you had to consciously think about how much of your Zambian identity to bring into your work, especially while building a brand and audience in South Africa?

 I have always viewed the world through a Pan-African lens. I’ve never really seen my South African identity as something that exists separately from the wider African continent. So I’ve never felt the need to consciously decide how much of one part of my heritage belongs in my work. I am shaped by both, and that naturally finds its way into the way I create. It can only enrich my creativity and the lens through which I see the world. I think, particularly now, conversations around identity can sometimes become very sensitive, but for me, acknowledging the diversity of our identities is not about creating separation. It is about recognising the shared histories, struggles, liberation and spirit that connect us as Africans.

2. Inclusivity and sustainability are two values that come through strongly in VINTU. Where do those values come from for you, and why was it important that they became part of the brand?

I grew up in a very diverse community in Cape Town, surrounded by different religions, races and nationalities. That experience really set the standard for the kinds of spaces I wanted to be in and, eventually, the kinds of spaces I wanted to create. There was a sense that difference was simply part of everyday life. With VINTU, I wanted to carry that same feeling, to create a brand that feels open, where different people, identities and experiences can exist alongside one another.

Sustainability is slightly different because it was something I grew up with before I had a word for it. It was simply how many of us lived. We reused plastic bags until they were completely worn out. We found new uses for things that were supposed to be discarded. You could open an ice-cream tub expecting ice cream and find yesterday’s dinner inside and be filled with disappointment. But that was also resourcefulness. You used what you had, you didn’t waste what still had value, and you found ways to make things work.

I think there is a tendency to speak about sustainability as though it is a new idea that we are only now discovering, when many African communities have long practised forms of reuse, repair, resourcefulness and making do.The terminology may be new, but the practice isn’t. For me, part of the process of decolonisation is also about recognising and reclaiming the value in those ways of living rather than assuming that everything we need to learn has to come from somewhere else.

That is why these values were important to VINTU. I didn’t want to add inclusivity and sustainability to the brand because they were fashionable ideas or because they were good for marketing. They were already part of the way I understood the world. VINTU is really an extension of that, creating something contemporary and luxurious while remaining connected to our people, our resources and our history. For me, luxury shouldn’t have to mean excess, exclusion or waste. It can mean intention, craft, longevity and value.

3. Fashion is an ever-evolving industry, and as a designer and business owner, there’s naturally pressure to keep up with trends and create pieces that people want to buy. How do you stay anchored to your ethos and create from a place of purpose, rather than feeling pressured to constantly produce for the sake of consumption and profit?

I actually think this is the perfect time to do whatever the hell you want. We’re living in a moment where everything is trending at the same time, so there’s no single aesthetic or direction you have to subscribe to. Whatever you create, there will probably be a group of people who find it, connect with it and make it their own. More importantly, I think people are desperately craving something different, something that has meaning and depth behind it.

For me, staying anchored to VINTU’s ethos means not creating simply for the sake of creating. Every piece needs to have a reason to exist. It needs to be made really well, with the highest level of quality we can achieve, and it needs to be something that someone wants to keep for as long as possible.

I’m much more interested in creating pieces that become part of someone’s life than pieces that are simply part of someone’s wardrobe for a season. The real goal is longevity. that what I make today can still have value decades from now, that it can be repaired, passed on and eventually become part of someone else’s story.

Honestly, I don’t want profit to be the only measure of success. I want to create the kind of pieces that, 50 years from now, someone’s grandkids are fighting over. That’s the goal.

4. What has surprised you most about turning your creativity into a business, and what is something about the business side of fashion that you wish someone had told you earlier?

That it’s a BUSINESS! Being talented and creative is one thing, but turning that creativity into a sustainable business is a completely different ball game.

I think sometimes we romanticise the chaotic, aloof creative archetype. The idea that being disorganised or spontaneous somehow makes you more creative. But once you start a business and realise that people depend on you for work, you start to see things very differently. When I look at my patternmakers and seamstresses and realise that their livelihoods are, in some way, supported by this business existing, it makes you take it very seriously. My creativity is no longer just about me.

I’ve spent the past year and a half just taking courses and learning the parts of the business that I never necessarily imagined myself being interested in, Things like management, balance sheets, cash flow projections, costing, planning and all the things that make a business actually function. There’s been a lot of learning on the job, and honestly, it’s hard. I want to do this properly. It’s a lot of work, but I believe it will be worth it in the long run.

But I think the biggest thing I wish someone had told me earlier is that your talent can start the business, but it cannot run the business for you. 

5. What’s one thing you’re still dreaming of for VINTU?

Honestly, I think the dream is always evolving. What I want for VINTU today might be completely different tomorrow. Today, I might dream about showing on a runway in Paris. Tomorrow, I might be thinking about how I can create more opportunities for people to sustain themselves and their families. The next day, I’m thinking about homeware and interiors or creating a full length fashion film.

I think I’ve given myself permission to stay open to all of those possibilities. I don’t want to become so attached to one version of what VINTU is supposed to be that I limit what it could become.

I’m still figuring it out, and I think that’s part of the excitement. In a strange way, I feel like I’m allowing VINTU to write its own story, and I’m just trying my best to give it the space to become whatever it’s meant to be.

What Amanda’s journey reminds us is that creating with purpose and allowing your dream to evolve are not opposing ideas. You can be intentional about what you put into the world without deciding exactly what it has to become.