Maria McCloy, a polymath whose career spanned fashion design, DJing, publicity, and journalism, has died at 50 due to heart failure in Johannesburg. Her family confirmed the loss, noting her gift for bringing people together - a talent that resonated deeply in the worlds of music, art, and style. For McCloy, lingerie's intimate language of self-expression was never far from her work: her Africa-inspired footwear and accessories brand, launched in 2007, echoed the continent's rich textile traditions, much like the hand-embroidered corsets and woven bustiers that have defined lingerie's cultural narrative from Victorian times to today's runways.
McCloy's career began in the late 1990s as a journalist covering South African fashion and music for outlets like Rage and The Mail & Guardian. She co-founded Black Rage Productions, which birthed the country's first hip-hop label, Outrageous Records, and the urban culture site rage.co.za. Her publicity firm, established in 2010, championed clients from Ladysmith Black Mambazo to the Hugh Masekela Heritage Festival, while her design work appeared at South Africa Fashion Week in 2017 for Woolworths' StyleBySA - a brand that, like early 20th-century lingerie houses, democratized style through accessible, culturally infused designs.
Her upbringing in Lesotho and the U.K., with influences from her English grandmother's "pretty dresses" to Mosotho Seshoeshoe skirts, shaped a sensibility that treated fashion as identity. As Lesego Chepape wrote, McCloy understood that "fashion, music, parties, slang and aesthetics were not frivolous things but markers of identity and political expression." In an era when lingerie itself has evolved from hidden undergarments to a statement of empowerment, McCloy's legacy reminds us that every thread - whether a shoe, a song, or a story - can weave culture together. She is survived by her mother and sisters; a memorial will be announced.
Originally reported by WWD