The EXPERT, May 2026, Issue 3

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I shake Phumza’s hand as she arrives at the restaurant, and a spark of static electricity flashes between our palms. Turns out, this sums up her presence pretty well. She wears a striking orange jacket and the kind of smile that lights up a room. Her energy is vibrant, speaking with finality about her ambitions and dreams, and she sees the world from a problem-solver’s point of view. In this life, she is charged with fixing one huge universal issue: “I’m telling you,” she says, leaning over the table, “Every woman, every man; we all want a pair of jeans that just fits properly.” 

Phumza Sokhetye is a PhD Researcher in Textiles and Apparel, whose current research was inspired by the lived-experience of her sister, Ndileka. Together, they’d go clothes shopping as teenagers, and Ndileka’s fuller hips and smaller waist meant she had to compromise between comfort and fit every single time.

Her body shape – like many others – doesn’t fit the standardised system, which varies from store to store. This makes searching for the perfect jeans a near impossible task, but Phumza decided to flip this frustration into opportunity. 

At The University of Manchester, Phumza is harnessing artificial intelligence (AI) to create digital patterns, offer size recommendations and speed up automated processes to create bespoke-fitting jeans that celebrate diversity, inclusivity and sustainability. This revolutionary process uses a 3D body scanner to extract measurements and produce a mesh, which then creates a ‘digital avatar’.

Using this modern equivalent of a mannequin, Phumza is able to test “fit” jeans digitally, which significantly reduces sample fabric wastage and ensures a completely customised fit. “I always say,” Phumza explains, “AI can be seen as a partner. It can never replace a human brain.”

With a Bachelors and Masters in Fashion and 16 years of university lecturing experience, Phumza is Director and Co-Owner of Kingspark Jeans Manufacturers, a 51% black-women owned business. It was recognised at the 2019 KZN Investor Awards and is based in her home country of South Africa.

She is also a member of the Golden Key International Honour Society, has been profiled in the North Courier Newspaper in Ballito, South Africa (2021) as a successful businesswoman, and was recently awarded a £4,000 grant from the Masood Entrepreneurship Centre (MEC) as seed funding towards commercialisation of the project.

As our conversation meanders from AI processes to ethics, I pose the question of “human-ness” in this new fashion landscape. But Phumza’s parameters for AI automation are distinct: “It should not be mistaken for taste, authorship, emotional intelligence or cultural understanding. Fashion is not only about efficiency; it is also about meaning, identity, memory and embodiment. That is where the human element remains essential.”

She continues, “Human-ness is maintained by keeping people in charge of intention and judgment. AI can propose, simulate or predict, but the product developer still decides what is beautiful, what is ethical, what feels right on the body and what belongs in the world.”

As both a creative and a business-owner, Phumza is open-minded to technological advancements in fashion. Two hundred years ago, it was the invention of sewing machines that disrupted the “normal” production of clothes, now it happens to be AI. Yet with all that being said, the unfortunate reality of job loss is often wide-spread; the collateral damage in among the innovation.

However, Phumza believes AI will redefine employment in the fashion industry: “I do not think the future will be fully automated. The most likely outcome is not ‘AI replaces fashion scientists, researchers, product developers and designers’, but a more layered industry where creative direction, ethics, material experimentation and storytelling remain human strengths, while AI supports precision, forecasting, fitting and iteration. Some people’s jobs will not be replaced by AI, they will be replaced by those who can use AI.” 

In fact, with increasing regulations around sustainability, Phumza predicts that brands will pay much closer attention to what they make, where it’s manufactured and how much waste it produces.

McKinsey & Company and the Business of Fashion reported that 75% of fashion executives are prioritising AI integration in areas like operations, product development and forecasting, indicating a growing acknowledgement across the industry.

“The most successful fashion systems will probably be the ones that combine technological intelligence with cultural sensitivity and craft,” Phumza adds, referring to ‘cultural sensitivity’ as the personalisation to different body shapes. 

This approach is the one Phumza is pursuing, and she is soon taking her work back to South Africa to widen her research participant pool. To accommodate this, the University has installed software that allows body scanning via smartphone. Phumza can share a unique link that means anyone can record a body scan using their mobile’s camera, which is then automatically updated to the system in Manchester.

Upon her return, these results will translate into digital avatars that can be tested for fabric movement (e.g. kneeling, bending, twisting) and ensure precise fit. Then, her brand Curvindiks Jeans can produce the jeans after the customer secures them with a deposit – similar to buying a wedding dress.

“I think Manchester is becoming a serious player, offering a smarter, more local, and sustainable model,” she says. “Manchester has the potential to redefine its identity from a fast-fashion hub to a centre for next-generation textile and manufacturing innovation.” 

For this very reason, Curvindiks Jeans will be known as a ‘British-South African’ brand. Sensing my initial perplexity – her successful career, and manufacturing facility, began in South Africa – Phumza clarifies, “[I] ask [myself], why did I leave my country? Not even my country – my continent – to come here? It’s because of the innovation, technology and skills within The University of Manchester.” The idea of the city evolving past it’s “fast-fashion” status now seems increasingly tangible, with innovative and conscious brands like Phumza’s establishing themselves here in Manchester.

Feeling a renewed sense of optimism, we start exchanging clothing horror stories of the past two decades as the lunchtime rush subsides. But there’s one more topic I want to discern before Phumza has to dash to a meeting. What’s next?

“In 20 years, I believe the industry will be far more hybrid, but I also believe AI will never replace the human brain,” she says, considering the words. “I expect pattern development, fit testing and early sampling to be predominantly digital, production to be more localised and responsive, and sizing to be increasingly personalised.”

It seems, on the whole, those producing garments will feel the shift of AI first. On the other side of the conveyer belt, the consumer probably won’t see immersive fitting rooms with body-scanning technology just yet. Cost, trust and privacy will all impact the extent to which this AI will be adopted. However, I can confirm that Phumza’s sister, Ndileka, together with her cousin Khuthala, came to Manchester to get scanned for their custom jeans in September 2025. In this ever-linear industry, where trends come and go, that is a full circle moment to inspire change.

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