Global Game Changers

From financial technology to fashion, get to know some of the names and brands that have curbed convention, broken the mould and shifted the way we think about their respective industries.

- Yolisa Mjamba

LUTHO MBONAMBI

FOUNDER OF AGAPEWEDDINGBOUTIQUE.CO.ZA

I’ll never forget how harrowing it was trying to customise my own wedding gown, back when I was a bride in 2016. But from that experience, emerged the idea of Agape Wedding Boutique (agapeweddingboutqiue.co.za), an online custom wedding dress business, where we specialise in creating beautiful gowns that uniquely reflect each bride on her special day.

We have a unique business model that uses tech to break away from the traditional processes of the wedding dress industry, this allows us to fulfil affordable custom orders almost completely online. What’s so exciting about this is that our tech-inspired approach enables us to provide full transparency during the entire creation process, from design to delivery, and allows for interactive collaboration with the brides.

In essence, we believe our blend of highly personalised service and transparency makes brides not only feel at ease but really special. Also, wedding dresses don’t have to be expensive: we use a strategy that allows us to reduce costs, this means our dresses can be three times lower than the industry average!

SA is still relatively new to the online shopping space, which means there’s obviously some natural hesitation when it comes to purchasing such an important item over the Internet, but we anticipated that and adapted our approach to not only lessen the anxiety but also provide brides with special and memorable moments that come with this exciting journey by providing physical touch points at critical stages of the process. Lastly, we’re so confident about our service and product that we have stamped it with a 100% money back guarantee – no questions asked.

KGOTHI ‘IMAN’ DITHEBE

MODEL AND ACTRESS