Fitness is an important aspect of life, not just to have a “nice body” but for a healthy lifestyle. While taking good care of your body is key, wearing the right clothes while working out is also important. We chat to the founders of Kheper, a Cape Town clothing brand specialising in activewear.
Please tell us a little about how you to started the brand.
Kheper was founded by a married couple, Martin and Mena Kooger. Martin, an entrepreneur by heart started business in the Netherlands but moved to South Africa five years ago and totally found his passion for competitive bodybuilding.
How did you come together to form Kheper?
Mena was always complaining that she couldn’t find inexpensive gym tights that were not shine through, squat proof and didn’t ride down while exercising.
Listening to her moan made me release that other women must be experiencing the same issues and so we put that question out to over 200 South African women via social media and were totally saddened and thrilled that all of the women had the same issues.
Stretching by the beach in Kheper gear. Picture: Supplied.
We knew we were on to something, and totally believed we could bring high quality, inexpensive activewear to the market. We spent countless hours researching what fabrics were being used in activewear in South Africa, and comparing it with what international brands were using and soon realised that we would need to import our fabric to achieve our goal of having squatproof gym tights.
We contacted international fabric mills and soon found our Supflex fabric, which is squatproof, moisture wicking and has a four-way stretch for our tights and bamboo fabric for our tops that are silky soft and antibacterial.
When it started four months ago, what was the main objective and how have you managed to grow nationally in a short period?
Our main objective is to create the highest quality activewear at affordable prices. Thanks to the digital age we live in, Kheper has been a national company from day one. We don’t like to think of ourselves as a online store but rather a social brand as we are able to sell on social media platforms and through our website.
In fact 80% of all our sales are from Instagram and combining that with the influx of creative and reliable courier service providers, customers are now able to shop online or via social media and receive their orders within one to three days.
Flexible on the grass in Kheper active wear. Picture: Supplied.
What’s uniquely incredible about your active wear?
Our fabric firstly - we import 95% of our fabrics and locally source the rest but we manufacture everything in Cape Town and have been blessed to have found local specialist CMTs to work with us and this allows us to have total control over the manufacturing process and maintain our quality standards.
We don’t do loud branding on any of our clothes as we believe that we are part of the wearer’s fitness journey and they are not a walking billboard for us and that has really appealed to a more mature audience but we are still able to reach the younger buyers as we have exciting and adventurous colours available.
Colourful Kheper shorts. Picture: Instagram.
What’s next for Kheper?
We are bringing out our beauty booty tights in February, which are basically also known as a scrunch bum tights.
Stay in touch with Kheper on @kheper_sa on Instagram as they also offer nutrition and fitness guides provided by a qualified personal trainer and nutrition expert with a psychology degree, Miss K.