Barbie dolls and plastic telephones
vied with live goldfish in last weekend’s Smirnoff International Fashion Awards. But, in the end, it was the cows’ stomachs that walked off with the
prize, reports MALU VAN LEEUWEN
‘IMAGINE your mind is shut away from the real world, you are living in darkness, completely detached. Then, suddenly, the light floods in. You are free. You are dizzy with the intoxication of freedom – the pure thrill of release. Celebrate – your life has begun again
Inspired and in some cases overawed by this brief, student designers from 35 countries competed in Cape Town last weekend for the prestigious Smirnoff International Fashion Awards – and heaven knows what some of them were thinking of when they saw the light.
Next to Finland’s Neanderthal-style, roughly- hewn woollen shapes, Spain’s modern-day dandy appeared all the more libertine – civilised and decadent. But pity Holland, whose clinical New- Age outfits drew scant applause, looking as though they’d stepped out of reruns of Battlestar Galactica.
Poland’s “thrill of release” assumed various stages of dshabill with futuristic perspex hoops and transparent breast cones. One of its models, a gaudily rouged, pasty-faced male of sumo-wrestler proportions, all but stole the show. Clad in little but a G-string, a see- through cape and crown, he smirked the tartest of expressions while waving Queen Mum-style to the audience.
For the crowd of 6 000 who had battled a raging south-easter to get to the Good Hope Centre, the event was a dizzying, voyeuristic experience. It was also a test in making sense of theme interpretations carried to literal, liberal and symbolic extremes.
The opening dance sequence – as superbly choreographed as the entire show – demonstrated just how opaque the divide between emancipation and bondage can be when fantasy runs rampant. A chain-wielding dominatrix, legs visibly trembling in a pair of gravity-defying stilettos, stalked among bodies suspended horizontally above the catwalk. The rest of the dance pack, meanwhile, roamed like lab monkeys in the huge, imposing industrial grid flanking the ramp.
Whoever designed the set as a creative factory site clearly knew what they were doing: it was an apt context for a show which explored just what “liberty” can mean when international reputations and $10 000 prize money are at
With all manner of corsets and elaborate head- dresses, designers’ imaginations knew no bounds. Textiles ranged from wire, perspex, hessian, heavy-duty plastic, rope and aluminium all the way to feathers, sophisticated fake fur and, believe it or not, eggshells, teabags and knitted audio tape.
At times the designs ended up having little to do with the concept of liberty – how models managed to walk and simultaneously balance labyrinthine headpieces and awkward hooped body frames required a stretch of the imagination.
Those entries which recycled 1970s glam with 1990s “white trash” were often so bizarre as to boggle the senses. Less shock than shlock were Hong Kong (dangling goldfish bowl with live fish passing for a handbag) and Israel (pink sequin hotpants and matching platforms, swanking to Love is in the Air).
Not strictly in this category but zany all the same was South Africa’s entry. Despite the audience’s roar of approval, Peta Lee Woolf’s schoolgirlish numbers – one composed of panels of letters of the alphabet – failed to impress the judges.
But there was little chance Woolf could have competed with Katrina Kozic from Croatia. Her own shocking pink hair paled in contrast to a jumble sale of kitsch accoutrements cleverly disguised as wearable clothing. Nothing was too much – a yellow toy telephone, a naked Barbie doll in a pink birdcage. Topping it all, and bouncing to the theme tune from The Muppets, was a garish bouquet of artificial flowers nesting upon a pair of platforms to end all platforms.
Political agendas aside, freedom as escapism from the present has its own problems – those platforms are still as impossible to wobble in as they were in the 1970s. There’s also no way plastic flowers are going to make a comeback – unless Elize Botha becomes a fashion icon
Some entries were more popular than others. Brazil was a crowd favourite with sumptuous velvet folds draped in a style reminiscent of Japanese couturier Issey Miyake. A touch of brilliance was added by copper coils twined around naked breasts and an ornate bustle which, curving into a train, concluded in a wheel – to rapturous applause.
Third place belonged to Denmark, whose ice-blue space-suits with puffball tutus whizzed by on rollerblades. Second was Japan, featuring what can only be described as nuclear fallout with metallic carbuncle eruptions on a skintight bodysuit strongly resembling hessian matting.
But for sheer ingenuity Iceland’s Linda Bjorg Arnadotir was awarded first place. Undeniably breathtaking, her creation was an “egg” composed of a bulging shell casing which split open to a yolk-coloured dress silhouetted by a light strapped underneath to the model’s legs.
Afterwards Arnadotir explained that her “monument to life” was symbolic and eco- friendly. Following an old Eskimo tradition, she had compressed cows’ stomachs (courtesy of the local slaughterhouse), treating them with natural oils and metal to create a fine leather with tie-dyed rust. “I wanted to give something back to the environment rather than (the entrails) being thrown away as they had no other practical use.”
“Linda is a technologist as well,” raved one of the judges. “She’s using fabric that’s in the atmosphere, not creating new (fabrics) which destroy it. Recycled material is the way forward in the fashion industry!”
Whether or not this turns out to be the case, my vote goes to the Allure journalist who once proclaimed “designers have seen the future – and it still looks like Star Trek”.