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Makarapa inventor Alfred Baloyi
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Jacqui Pile
Financial Mail
Friday, July 09, 2010
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From humble miner’s hat to collector’s item, Alfred Baloyi’s makarapas have become an international hit.
Named after the colloquial word for an immigrant mine worker, lekarapa, the custom-made, colourful creations originally made from miner’s helmets for soccer fans have become an icon of the 2010 soccer World Cup.
Baloyi first came up with the idea of wearing hard hats to soccer matches in 1979 after seeing missiles being flung from upper seats at fans in the cheap seats. “I’m a diehard Kaizer Chiefs fan and would attend all their matches,” says Baloyi. “But after I saw a guy getting hit by a bottle, I decided I needed some protection.”
At the time Baloyi was living in a hostel in Mamelodi, outside Pretoria. A friend who worked on a construction site gave him a hard hat for a Kaizer Chiefs versus Moroka Swallows match at Orlando Stadium in Soweto. When he returned home, Baloyi decided to spruce it up by decorating it with his team’s colours and logo. “Whenever I wore it, people noticed and kept offering to buy it,” says Baloyi. “I sold my first makarapa for R7 right off my head.” The hats now go for R350 and more.
Over time, Baloyi developed his ideas by cutting out parts of the helmet and using colourful paints to design hats for different teams. By 1990 his cut-outs of famous players were much in demand and Baloyi got a lot of local publicity. This was something his bosses at the Pretoria City Council, where he worked as a bus cleaner, didn’t like.
“You must remember that this was still apartheid, so I was fired,” he says.
However, by that time Baloyi was able to set up a full-time business making his makarapas in a small workshop in his shack in Germiston.
Baloyi’s journey to success hasn’t been easy, though. He feels some people have taken advantage of his ideas, setting up copycat businesses for 2010, but says it’s too expensive to take legal action.
Now Baloyi has teamed up with his long- time friend and fellow football fan Grant Nicholls and his makarapas will be marketed under the name Baloyi Makarapas to ensure his role as the originator is recognised, his hard work rewarded and his intellectual property protected.
Baloyi plans to continue designing unique makarapas. His creations have adorned the heads of former president Nelson Mandela and President Jacob Zuma and he’s recently designed one for Fifa boss Sepp Blatter. He also creates custom corporate makarapas, with companies such as Discovery, Old Mutual and Bidvest sporting his headwear.
Recently back from a two-week trip to the Netherlands, Baloyi is also the star of a new Heineken advertisement.
“I’ve had little time to focus on the business with all the media and interviews,” says Baloyi. “The World Cup has boosted business and we want to use that as much as possible to continue exporting makarapas all over the world.”
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