Shop The Timeline With Lerato Kgamanyane and Tsholo Mokone

Locally made, hand crafted and specially made for you!

Written by Sizwe Shabalala

Founded by two friends, Lerato Kgamanyane and Tsholo Mokone, The Timeline is a commercial clothing brand dedicated to making every woman feel like they can be every woman.  

“Initially, while Tsholo and I were on a call and she was throwing names at me, she was like ‘The TL - for Tsholo and Lerato’ and I was like ‘oh The TL, like The Timeline? Let’s just call it that!’” and just like that, The Timeline by Tsholo and Lerato was born! 

 Even though the brand is only 7 months old, it has already seen an overwhelming amount of success and looks to be growing from strength to strength.  

“It’s truly a commercial fashion brand for every woman — the cosmopolitan woman. She’s influenced by different ideas, different trends and ways of doing things.” 

In terms of their target audience, The Timeline’s market is primarily young professionals or young (18 - 40) women who are trend conscious and make a mid-range income. With so many new stores popping up frequently especially with the rise of social media, Lerato and Tsholo have found ways to utilize their social presence to ensure that the brand is cutting through all the noise and growing its market.   

“Lerato and I fortunately have somewhat of a noteworthy social media presence in our personal capacities, which we lean on to get the brand noticed, create talkability and subsequently grow our market. In addition, in as much as we watch and appreciate what our competitors are doing, we’re very self-aware of how we want our brand to be received as well as what we want it to be — so we never stray from that,” explains Tsholo.  

Like with many other fashion brands today, the conversation around sustainability and clean fashion remains very prevalent in how brands approach their business. While there are brands that shy away from disclosing this type of information, The Timeline remains very transparent with their position and the work they still need to do to elevate their business in this department.  

“This is actually such a big conversation at The Timeline. We’re aware that we still need to thoroughly educate ourselves on what sustainable fashion is, and what that looks like for our entire business chain. So, we’re still in the grey about the ecological integrity our brand holds, particularly when it comes to the genesis of our suppliers' processes (as we still outsource several elements and services of our business). However, it’s very important for us to take the sustainable route at the end of the day because of our high regard for humanity, social justice and ethics.” 

The Timeline has a unique human element to its branding and so, it comes as no surprise that, beyond just the actual sales of clothing items, success for the brand is rooted in its relationship with the customer through user-generated content. 

“We love seeing our customers go out of their way to create unboxing videos, posting images or videos in our clothes and even doing reviews for us. From the beginning, it was really important for us to create a community and make The Timeline an interactive brand and when we get that right...it’s gold!” 

No business is without its fair share of trials and challenges. For The Timeline, still only 7 months old, Lerato admits that playing every role in the business, especially when they had just launched was particularly challenging.  

“Between myself and Tsholo, we were both the accountants, community managers, administrators, models, creative directors, sourcers, packers...you name it, of the business. And when we have 200 orders at a time it can be quite difficult to fulfill as speedily as we’d like or communicate as promptly as we like.” 

The Timeline now has its own factory and Lerato and Tsholo now have staff that are employed under them. A noteworthy milestone for any business that has ambitions of not only growing its sales but also affect change in communities.   

“In the future, we hope The Timeline can grow into a symbiotic lifestyle brand that retails across the globe not only online but also in a brick-and-mortar operation.”