At Kwamagesh Spinning Arena, the people who usually stand at the edges of the spotlight found themselves at its centre. On 10 October 2026, during Heat on the Street, Engen unveiled Xtreme Kouture, a fashion collection built around the mechanics, spinners, tuners, shop stewards and petrolheads who have shaped one of South Africa’s most distinctive motoring cultures. For the communities gathered at the arena, the message was simple: the style they live every day is worth celebrating.
The collection itself is made from materials most people would throw away. Garage-inspired garments were created from repurposed lubricant materials, including bottle caps, bottles and recycled corporate wear. Behind them stands Carlo Gibson, a Chicago-based South African artist, fashion designer and activist whom Engen commissioned for the project. He was chosen not only for his aesthetic but for a design approach that has long explored sustainability, recycling, upcycling and the cultural value of materials others might overlook or discard.
Gibson is candid about the limits of sustainable fashion. There is no perfect answer, he says, but people can buy less, choose more consciously and expect their clothes to last longer. Fashion, in his view, has spent years convincing us that newness is the point. Maybe the more radical idea now is longevity.
For Melissa Graham, Engen Lubricants Marketing Manager, the project is about recognition rather than reinvention. What we normally regard as waste can become a resource when imagination is applied to it, she says. The aim was never to make garage clothing look fashionable, because the garage already has fashion, identity and attitude of its own. The collection, she explains, turns the spotlight back onto the communities that inspired it.
Gibson describes how that connection shaped the work. The people behind the collection already have their own visual language, he says, and the team was not trying to put fashion onto that culture but to recognise the fashion that was already there and push it somewhere unexpected. Car culture, he argues, has always carried fashion within it: the way people customise a car, the colours they choose, the stance, the wheels, the detailing, all of it self-expression. Street fashion works the same way, taking familiar things and making them unmistakably yours.
The human investment extended beyond the finished garments. A fashion design intern joined the team for the full creation phase, working directly alongside Gibson and gaining hands-on experience in bringing a major collection to life. Meanwhile, a local team of seamstresses produced the clothing, meaning the making of Xtreme Kouture invested in local skills, craftsmanship and livelihoods as well as local culture.
Graham insists that sustainability has to work in the real world, which means looking at the entire ecosystem surrounding the brand: lubricant packaging, workshops, mechanics, communities, education, waste and the long-term sustainability of the independent automotive sector itself. In her words, the collection is about putting mechanics on the mood board, putting spinners in the fashion conversation, turning discarded materials into something desirable and investing in the skills and hands that make motoring culture possible. Being proudly South African, she says, means recognising the communities that make this industry what it is.
The project forms part of Engen Xtreme’s Beyond Oil platform, which explores responsible recycling, sustainability and ways of creating value beyond the brand’s products. For Engen Xtreme, the collection represents another way of investing in the people behind South Africa’s motoring culture. Graham calls it another exciting chapter as the brand continues to champion South African motoring culture, pointing to what she describes as a natural synergy with the vibrant and performance-driven spinning community, and a commitment to providing the highest-quality products to customers and communities. Whether the spotlight stays on these communities after the arena lights dim remains the open question.