PSFK Author:
Dan Pinch

The township of Soweto is famous worldwide for its apartheid era images of riots and poverty. Images coming out of the area these days however are often of fashionable young South African’s partying, as numerous brands are using the township as staging post for reaching a rapidly growing black middle class (nicknamed “black diamonds” by marketers for their increasing spending power).

The Soweto Wine Festival expects over 5,000 visitors and is an essential part of the Western Cape based wine industry’s attempt to reach this new market. They describe their audience as:

“black middle class Sowetan residents (commonly referred to as Black Diamonds) and VIP’s plus ex-Sowetan residents who travel from the suburbs to enjoy these evenings with their friends and family, who reside in Soweto. Saying this, we are experiencing more and more black South Africans that reside all over Gauteng, coming into Soweto to enjoy this groundbreaking festival.”

Another increasingly popular event, targeting a slightly younger but similar audience, is the Soweto Beach Festival. Soweto being several hundred kilometres from the sea is held at Power Park Dam, with 400 tons of beach sand imported for the event. The event, sponsored by a host of drink and lifestyle brands, features performances by some of South Africa’s leading musicians.

Other (heavily sponsored events) in Soweto include a beer festival, a spirits festival and the Tour de Soweto (bike race) amongst others.

There is a palpable sense of Fashion Week fatigue in recent coverage of the spring/summer shows. The problem seems to be just the sheer amount of events: a fashion editor or buyer could almost spend the entire year attending fashion weeks as almost every city from Lagos to Singapore now has one. Even major events seem to be under pressure with the recent LA Fashion Week attracting some criticism for a lack of the usual glitterati and industry heavy weights at shows.

A number of major buyers were reported in WWD as opting out of the recent L.A. event:

“I couldn’t sit through another show if you paid me,” said John Eshaya, vice president of women’s wear at Ron Herman, which is renowned for fostering local talent. “My team just got back from Europe and we’ve been seeing shows since the second week in September,” said Ron Frasch, president and chief merchandising officer of Saks Fifth Avenue. “It’s now the end of October. To pick up and go to L.A…it’s not going to happen. We have a business to run.”

It seems that fashion media and buyers are choosing to attend only one or two key events a season and spending more time on personal visits to designers (or just checking out the shows online). Designers may also be placing less value on fashion weeks by simply not showing at all or showing independently outside of the major events - Hugo Boss being a recent example according to Fashion Wire Daily.

WWD: Stars Don’t Come Out: Fashion Week in L.A. Badly In Need of Buzz

Matjiesfontein, a small town about four hours into the semi-desert Karoo from Cape Town recently played host to the gloriously odd ball Show ‘n Tell weekend. With a maximum capacity of 100 (that’s the most Matjiesfontein can accommodate) and a marketing plan of word of mouth and a blog it is a distinctly under-the-radar event. Part music festival, part art happening, part picnic but mostly a celebration of the deeply eccentric, the event is built entirely by the people that attend it (everyone is asked to make a creative contribution). A large part of the appeal is the town itself which is actually not more than a battered Victorian-era hotel (where not only the decor but the staff are antique) and a couple of out buildings at a railway siding in the middle of nowhere. Incidentally the hotel, once the playground of Victorian dandies taking the air, is supposed to be one of the most haunted buildings in the country. I asked local photographer Inge Prins (who describes herself as the events “conductor”) to explain what went down:

So for the un-initiated what is the event?

The aim is for everyone to contribute in the old fashioned way: perform, play and present in the tiny town of Matjiesfontein over a long weekend. Everyone that comes to the weekend has to come up with a creative contribution to present. It’s not a commercial undertaking - all participants are responsible for costs, logistics and technical requirements of their contributions but there is no charge to see any of the shows. The mix of people who came this year were from within various creative fields - designers, actors, photographers, musicians, writers, architects - but the idea is not for it to be exclusive to professional artists only

What were the highlights from this year?

The self service photostudio in one of the antique lounges of the Lord Milner Hotel was popular! Almost everyone present at the weekend came to take their photographs after Sunday evening’s vintage dress up dinner. Both nights had live bands and musicians performing. There was a massive open-air cinema in the garden, slideshows in a weird coffee house, French social games were played, a wishing tree, homemade short film screenings, landscape art , dj’s and lots of other events around town.

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Australia Fashion Week (which finishes today) is now promoting itself as a “trans-seasonal” event as a result of climate change.  The event, held in Sydney, would normally be the autumn/winter edition (the opposite of the recent northern hemisphere weeks) the current edition however concentrates on collections more suitable to a milder climate year round. The move may actually be more about breaking old world fashion week conventions that were never relevent to southern hemisphere events in the first place (and a cunning PR move to cash in on climate change hysteria) however it raises interesting questions. With the fashion industry becoming more global how relevent is it to show seasonal collections fitting the climate of one specific place (London or Paris for example)? And is climate change something the fashion industry really needs to plan for seriously or is this just more eco-hype?

 ”We just don’t have a need to do it any more,” (Australia) Fashion Week founder Simon Lock told AFP.

Lock said the move was partly the result of climate change, and partly due to the fact Australia has always enjoyed warmer weather than the traditional northern hemisphere fashion capitals of Milan, Paris and New York.

But he said as global temperatures rise, fashion houses and department stores around the world would face heavy winter clothing sitting ignored on racks as summer weather stretches well into autumn.

“Clothes just sit there, no one is buying them,” Lock said. “These are things that dramatically affect business.”

He said the issue has become such an industry-wide headache that some brands have hired climate experts to advise on which fabrics to use — and on delivery schedules to get their clothing into stores at the right time.

“There’s a lot of cities where climate change has an impact on what’s now currently available in the stores,” he said.

AFP: Global warming puts winter fashion out in the cold

The 80’s grip on popular culture may finally be slipping as the next generation is increasingly looking to the early 90’s for inspiration.

The first half of the noughties gave us unashamedly 80s fashion, music (the entire electro movement) and even hair cuts (asymmetric fringe anyone?). Since ‘05 however nineties influence has been creeping into youth culture.  

The UK’s New Rave movement which has had a massive impact on fashion and music is probably the most obvious example. The scene, depending on who you believe, was invented as a marketing gimmick by The Klaxons (who are now rapidly trying to disown it) but spawned an entire movement of indie-dance bands. On the fashion side the high-street (in particular Top Shop) was full of neon and 8-bit graphics all summer. 

Whilst the new rave movement is pretty much over (even electroclash managed to last longer as a scene…) the nineties revival continues apace with Doc Martens on the receiving end of an equally unlikely renaissance. Perhaps the most iconic footwear of the early nineties is back on the fashion sets A list (after years only being worn by goths). With DMs being prominent on this year’s fashion week catwalks and trendy link-ups with designers such as Yohji Yamamoto we’ll probably all be wearing them by the New Year (and trashing them by March).

As the kids of the 80s are increasingly distracted making families and paying off mortgages I guess it makes sense that the kids of the 90s (now in their twenties) are in control of youth culture. Standby for combat trousers, Ragga-Jungle and Speed Garage in hipster bars near you very soon (lord help us all).

See also: Alive & Kicking, The Independent UK

Maya Prass has built a strong reputation in South Africa for her approach to womenswear that matches creativity with wearability. Having made the transition from emerging talent to established designer in recent years she continues to impress local fashionistas with her flair for prints, colour and progressive silhouettes. I caught up with her a couple of days after Cape Town Fashion Week to get the background behind her collection and approach:

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The new South Africa takes its fashion damn seriously. The local fashion scene is (like any good fashion scene should be) a hot bed of politics, passion, big talking and the full spectrum of style that lives up to our rainbow nation tag line: from traditional African to obsessively eurocentric and several more interesting places in-between…

Thankfully some designers manage have managed to avoid the obvious ruts and create individual styles that stand a reasonable chance of traveling well. Stiaan Louw, fresh from Cape Town Fashion Week, is one of these designers. Still a relatively new name on the scene his recent collection was considered by many a highlight of the event. His signature style combines careful construction, dyed natural fabrics, graphic prints and quirky offbeat styling. These are his post-fashion week thoughts:

What are the key trends coming through in your collection?

Colour plays a strong role in my new collection, with particular emphasis on golden yellows and reds. Shapes are soft and voluminous but there is more attention on a accentuated waistline. Floral prints are highlighted through soft layering. Overall, the aim of the collection is to achieve a certain sense of simplicity and ease while incorporating strong style lines. The essential item from the new collection is a overgrown pleated shirt.

How do you start putting your collection together?

The conceptualisation phase starts a few months prior to the show. At this phase I work with a graphic designer who develops the prints for the collection. Fabrics are sourced and dyed in the colours selected specifically for the range, then printed, roughly a month prior to the showing of the range. Even though the construction of the garments are roughly designed a few months prior to the showing of the collection, the actual patterns and then the garments are only constructed in the month running up to Cape Town Fashion Week.

How closely do you look at international trends?

South Africa is still strongly influenced by international trends and for this reason it would be natural for local designers to investigate current trends. But I do believe it is also exceptionally important to create an individual identity as a South African designer. When I do reference current trends, I do it from a garment-construction perspective, investigating cutting-techniques.

What local/uniquely South African inspirations go into your collection: where do they come from? And how do they fit into your design process?
The current collection was a study of flowers, which were not only present in the prints but also in the shapes used in the clothes. We studied local flora which were used in the developmental stages of the prints for the collection. In a previous collection the colour palette and sensibilities of the Voortrekker were an inspiration. But I believe that it is not necessarily essential for South African designers to include local references in their work for it to be uniquely South African. What non-fashion sources do you look at when developing your work?

I find inspiration in a variety of different fields related indirectly to fashion and have in the past collaborated with graphic designers, fine artists such as
London based Pamela Thorpe as well as jewellery designers and a sensory branding agency Aromalogo. There is a wealth of information in these fields which can be inspiring and be incorporated into fashion design.

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The new South Africa takes its fashion damn seriously. The local fashion scene is (like any good fashion scene should be) a hot bed of politics, passion, big talking and the full spectrum of style that lives up to our rainbow nation tag line - from traditional African to obsessively eurocentric and several more interesting places in-between… Thankfully some designers manage have managed to avoid the obvious ruts and create individual styles that stand a reasonable chance of traveling well. Stiaan Louw, fresh from Cape Town Fashion Week, is one of these designers. Still a relatively new name on the scene his recent collection was considered, by many, a highlight of the event. His signature style combines careful construction, dyed natural fabrics, graphic prints and quirky offbeat styling. These are his post-fashion week thoughts: Read the rest of this entry »

There has been much talk over the last year in South Africa about local brands cracking the international market. Although design wise there are a number of SA brands that could compete the industry still has a way to go to build the business experience needed to make it in the northern hemisphere. A handful of designers are starting to break through however and starting to capitilise on increased taste for new design voices (not just from here in SA but other newer fashion markets like India, Brazil, Australia etc). Gavin Rajah, who was behind the most talked about collection at last week’s Audi Joburg Fashion Week, is arguably the South African most likely to make an international impact.

Rajah has shown twice at Paris Fashion Week Haute Couture as a guest designer and is planning a third trip later in the year. His combination of creativity and business savvy make him the local guy to watch north of the equator.

Images are from his fashion week collection in Joburg which followed a colourful hedonistic seventies theme with touches of Bollywood baroque.