Suzy Bell
Fashion
If fashion is a visual language, then most of the designers at this year’s Durban Designer Collection (DDC) were talking in tongues. Foreign tongues the kind you’d find in French and Italian Vogue. Foreign fashion bibles are fabulous for the designer lacking in imagination.
The only designers that saved the DDC from being an epic fashion washout were Gideon, Francois Vedemme, Gregory Mills, Britt Cormack, Leigh Schubert, Malcolm Kluk and Simona Magnai.
Take Colleen Eitzen’s range. No doubt a highly talented designer who clearly worships the body’s cultural context, she presented an elegant symphony in champagne … um … the creative champagne juices of Hussein Chalayan and Commes des Garcons. Yet Eitzen claims: “This year I tried really hard not to look at magazines and not to be influenced by trends and other designers.”
I could swear the editorial on Gucci’s Japanese punk range (say, Vogue April 1998) made a huge impression on the Holmes Brothers. And Terrence Bray’s range very Byblos.
The dreaded hibiscus repeated on itself throughout the show plastic hibiscus in hair, on choker, on bags, on ankles, on big black boys’ biceps. It was so Abigail Betz, so Phillippa Green. The hibiscus was also a favourite with one of the invited designers, Karen Monk-Klijnstra, who indulged herself in over-styling to the point of fashion gluttony. Like Bessie Bunter pressing her nose against the confectioner’s window “Tiramisu? Strawberry cheesecake? Lemon meringue?” oh woe is the hungry designer in a fabric shop. “Tulle? Blue silk? Orange satin? Pink or olive organza? Oh, what the hell, I’ll take the lot!”
Fashion bitchery aside, backstage was so Days of Our Lives. Catherine Award-winning designer Gideon (he who designed the famous Isidingo wedding dress) was understandably furious, because just before last Friday night’s show, horrors, a show garment was stolen. “I’ll never be able to get that material again,” he muttered under his breath, flicking a buttery blond Kurt Cobainey extension from his flustered face.
His muse, the gorgeous Jodi Stinson, with new Botticelli red mane flowing way past her nipples (created by Utopia, one of the DDC hairstylists, courtesy of a poor Indian bride who donated her hair to the local temple in Puttiparthi), was still laughing after the show because the ball gown she wore hooked on to the ramp and proceeded to follow her, slowly unravelling like a thick band of liquorice about to be eaten by its designer prey. “Did you see it? It grabbed on to Gideon’s dress, right here.” She dramatically pointed to the spot on the hemline just below the pair of frilly blue lace knickers sewn on to a quirky denim hoop skirt.
Gideon is widely celebrated as a designer of imagination his own. With every show he creates each outfit with immaculate individuality. The impeccable and original styling always reflects a celestial fashion narrative of characters. He reinvents a time, a place, a culture. His DDC range so impressed that four pieces were flown this week to London to be photographed for Wallpaper.
As for the young designers, suffice to say that highly respected fashion mentor Lucilla Booysens, convenor of South African Fashion Week and one of the judges at the DDC, found them “rather disappointing”.
“The student designers must design from their hearts, from this country, not from the foreign fashion magazines. Original ideas are the most important thing. They don’t have to worry if they have got the lines right or wrong. We are moving into an era of individuality,” she said, “and looking at the DDC some of those designers clearly did not trust their instincts.”