beauties
Matthew Krouse
It’s like the final chapters of Cinderella, when officials comb the poorest of the land trying to find a girl beautiful enough to pass for a princess. Even in the real life saga – the M-Net Face of Africa – Cinderella amasses an absolute fortune, probably making her an object of contempt among the ugly sisters back home.
Mothers are supposed to tell their daughters not to wish for such things, but when M-Net representatives scoured 44 cities in 26 African countries recently, you can be sure the village maidens turned out in force.
No doubt every girl on the continent wants to be the M-Net Face of Africa for the year 2000. In its three years of existence word must have carried that the winner walks away with a $150 000 modeling contract with the world famous Elite Model Management. This year’s winner will be joining her forerunners – 19-year-old Nigerian, Oluchi, and 18-year- old Namibian, Benvinda, in New York.
This Saturday marks the beginning of the 2000 beauty skirmish, and candidates for the Southern African glass slipper make up an interesting mix.
The contestants are Lerato Molooi (South Africa), Olivia Shalton (Zimbabwe), Indila Kamati (Namibia), Mayamiko Tembo (Malawi), Bonneventia Pule (South Africa), Emeldah Ikgopoleng (Botswana), Bekhiwe Dlamini (Swaziland), Debbie Lang (South Africa), Mary Nawale (Zambia), Zwelihle Matshali (South Africa), Mbapewa Njembo (Namibia), Nombulelo Mazibuko (South Africa) and Suraya Dhalakama (Mozambique).
Most are first-time models who will take to the runway in garments by the region’s top designers: Lungile Mbhabali and Bongi Gray from Swaziland, South Africa’s Errol Arendz, and Ziyanda Geza and Gofa Sithole from Botswana.
If you don’t have a grounding in fashion then, of course, none of these names will mean a thing. Someone who may be familiar to a broader audience though is Face Of Africa’s new presenter. Well-known television personality Nkhensani Manganyi has the good fortune of traveling the continent along with the beauty search.
This year Face of Africa will be integrating African and global fashion so, for the first time, African collections will be showcased alongside Paris couture at regional and final events. In their press releases, the organisers have expressed excitement about the fact that African designers will be shown alongside big international houses like Chanel, Kenzo and Mugler.
In a major coup for M-Net, top French fashion house Jean-Louis Scherrer confirmed its participation in the final event set for Cape Town. Principal designer for Scherrer, Stephane Rolland, will attend as a judge. It will be the first time that a Scherrer haute couture collection will be shown in Africa and the winner of the M-Net Face Of Africa 2000 will make her international modeling debut wearing the Scherrer collections in Paris shortly after being awarded the title.
This year, and in another first, South African fashion guru Dion Chang joins the M-Net Face Of Africa team as a fashion consultant. Chang will direct the collections of the various African designers participating in the project.
Apparently the standard of entrants this year is so high that the organisers have increased the number of finalists in each region to four.
This year is also the second year that M- Net Face Of Africa will be honouring photographers involved in the competition. The winning photographer will spend a week in New York working with the M-Net Face Of Africa 2000 winner on her first assignment.
Last year’s winner Kalungi Kaboye of Uganda’s New Vision newspaper apparently brought traffic to a standstill in Times Square, New York, when Benvinda and Oluchi joined forces to pose for a fashion shoot for him.
The 1997 winner Oluchi has obviously benefited from the contest, having just completed a fashion shoot for American Vogue and a cover for I-D magazine. One of the faces of Gap, Oluchi will feature in their new fall campaign photographed by leading photographer Richard Avedon.