Klopse Glamour: Which Cape Town Celebs Nailed the Look?
Seeing well-known personalities swap their usual look for a troupe uniform is always a highlight for the crowds lining the barriers.
Image: YoungstaCPT/Facebook
Some of Cape Town’s best-known names traded their usual look for satin suits and umbrellas at this year’s Kaapse Klopse.
YoungstaCPT, Early B, Peadon Smith, and Uncle Cedric joined the Orients troupe in their signature green and purple gear and danced through the streets with everyone else.
@shukr_hartzenberg Cape Town Street Parade 2026 with @💚ORIENTS💜 was one for the books 🫶🏼🇿🇦 Celebrating our culture, heritage and tradition in one of the most iconic ways. Danko to all the Lions for making this a memorable experience for all. Let's keep promoting positivity in the New Year! #culture #klopse #heritage #tradition #capetown ♬ original sound – South Africa UK
YoungstaCPT’s participation aligned perfectly with his artistic identity. He has always centered Coloured culture in his music.
And Early B…okay, everyone who knows him knows he’ll never turn down a lekke’ vibe, and you won’t find one better on this day than at the Klopse.
Ricky Vani Frontline, Loukmaan Adams, Aslam Richards also got dressed up for the occasion. Even Cape Town’s mayor Geordin Hill-Lewis stieked uit in Klopse wear, showing how this carnival cuts across every social and political divide.
If you’re not from Cape Town, here’s what you need to know. The Kaapse Klopse, also called the Coon Carnival or Tweede Nuwe Jaar, is an annual celebration that takes over Cape Town every second of January. Troupes dressed in brilliant satins parade through the city centre, performing choreographed routines whilst minstrel bands fill the air with ghoema beats and brass melodies. It’s a tradition rooted in the Cape’s slave and working class history, dating back to the 1800s when enslaved people were given a day off on January 2nd.
There’s a whole industry most people never see when they watch the Kaapse Klopse parade pass. Months before the carnival, neighbourhood seamstresses are already deep into their work, transforming mountains of fabric into the costumes that will define this year’s competition.
A troupe drops off fabric at these seamstress’ door, and what comes back are hundreds of outfits that need to look extraordinary under the summer sun. Some seamstresses are clothing entire troupes from a single room in their house. The scale is wild when you think about it.
And they’re competing with each other too. Each seamstress wants her troupe to outshine the others, which means topping last year’s designs, finding new combinations that haven’t been done before, taking risks that might pay off big. The pressure builds every season.
When Tweede Nuwe Jaar finally happens and the streets fill with colour and sound, those costumes are doing half the work. The performers bring the movement and the music, but the seamstresses gave them the armour to do it in.
These celeb appearances matter because the Klopse still fights for the respect it deserves. When people with platforms support authentically, they bring attention to a cultural practice deserves respect and participation, not observation from a distance.
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