This year’s Durban Designers Collection has scooped some of the hottest talent from around the country
Claire Bezuidenhout
When 16 gospel singers dressed in white PVC kimonos ignite the construction site of the Gateway Shoppertainment Mall in Umhlanga on Friday night, the audience is bound to get a taste of new wave “performance fashion”.
Suzy Bell, arts editor of The Independent on Saturday and creative director of the Durban Designers Collection (DDC), has reconstructed the rather dull format of past shows into a super-real explosion of conceptual art and South African music. Integrating broad-minded vision and intelligent performance foreplay, the DDC this year challenges the norm and injects the more spiritual element of design on to the ramp.
Utilising the growing bones of the Gateway Shopping Centre as a framework for the show and cleverly incorporating the barren tapestry of construction, Deon Redman of Fork Models fame and Bell have juxtaposed the mall-culture idiom into a fashion/performance installation worthy of international trends.
“Our aim is a massive multimedia art installation posing as a fashion show,” enthuses Bell.
With the musical focus being local, the DDC has scooped some of the hottest talent from around the country. Groove maskande diva Busi Mhlongo and kwaito superstars Shana join forces for mistress of avant-garde haute couture Marianne Fassler’s range, while the sultry bitch of female angst Michelle Breeze, of Fetish fame, will perform original new material arranged especially for Abigail Betz’s designs.
Expect a funeral procession “installation” from the ethereal Francois Vendemme.
“I’ve tried to bring the spiritual element of religion, death and fashion together. The outfits are very beautiful and delicate. Italian lace, lots of black, a son, a daughter, elegant and tarty, utilising the latest plaited stretch fabrics and fur,” explains Vendemme, who shares the Gateway Guest Designer’s Collections with Fassler and Marion & Lindie.
Brendan Jury will be lending his musical talents for Vendemme’s range and we’ve been told to expect a rather “stunning little surprise” on the ramp.
Karen Monk-Klinjnstra, who was voted Elle magazine’s most stylish designer of 1999, has broken forcefully into colour and texture for her DDC range in The Independent on Saturday’s designer category. With loud, fresh materials in a vagabond-cross-Mongolian theme, Monk’s raw silks, brocade and fur-trimmed, hand- knitted designs are sure to place her firmly in the spotlight. Bad boys of South African rock Springbok Nude Girls, although not performing live, provide the atmosphere with the song Shot.
“Our focus for the music this year was intensely South African,” says Bell. “We made sure that the designers were educated in their choices. I think we have proved that we have the equivalent to European opera, such as Bronwyn Forbay and Sibongile Khumalo, whose music is used in the show.”
Craig Native – who rose instantly to design superstardom after the successful exposure of his designs on Lenny Kravitz’s sweaty, lithe body – is the unanimous favourite of the show. His urban ber-hip trash designs can be seen alongside Cape Town’s David West.
Other designers participating in the designers section are Lavani Pillay, Chelle Lovatt, Malibongwe Zulu, Apostolos Exadaktylos, Gregory Mills and Melissa Buskin, Clinton Naidoo, Geraldine de Beer, Maphiwe Mzolo and Dudu Gwala.
The notorious Michael Burt of the Destroy label, whose designs are shipped to Israel, New York and Italy, brings to the ramp the three obsessions of the millennium sub-culture: love, sex and money.
Other local music to look forward to is Bongo Maffin, ELX of Cape Town, Leo Janssen of THC and DJ MC Prawn of Extreme fame.
Hair Design is provided by the well- known talents of Innovation Hair Design and Sloanes with make-up art by Aldytha Wheeler. Audio Visual design is by Hirt and Carter with sound by Gearhouse.
This year’s DDC looks to oscillate between the built and the broken; the spiritual and the material. “We did not give the designers a particular theme this year,” says Bell. “We gave them spiritual inspiration instead. We gave them the amazing architecture of Gateway. The sheer size of the building and symbolic reverence of an unused site provides you with the slightly bent balance of intimacy and godliness. I think if we had to classify this year’s DDC we would simply say, ‘Worship the cloth.'”
There are four shows on June 2 and 3, with ticket prices ranging from R40 to R80. Red Eye @rt patrons pay a special rate of R45, which includes the Red Eye exhibition and free transport leaving from the Durban Art Gallery at 8.30pm to the Gateway Shopping Centre. All tickets are available from Computicket (www.computicket.com)