The clothes at this year’s Fashion Week were creative and youthful, more wearable and affordable
Charl Blignaut
Bustling through the doors two shows late and already out of breath on the first day of Fashion Week, you’ve got to wonder how there can be next to nothing going down in Jo’burg for weeks on end and then all of a sudden it’s Fashion Week, Music Week and Black August all in one go.
“Oh, shut up and smile,” says my companion. A camera flashes. Here we go again. The South African Fashion Week circus has hit Sandton. Bigger and, no doubt, better. Certainly better supported than ever before. Sponsors’ labels hang from the roof of the Sandton Convention Centre like price tags from heaven.
“It’s like eating an elephant, really,” says Fashion Week PR Estelle Cooper. “The only way it can happen is if a whole lot of like-minded people jump on and tuck in. Somehow it just happened.”
Somehow, Fashion Week has just happened for five years now and it’s hard to imagine Jo’burg without it.
If the growth of Fashion Week can be used as a yardstick, then the local fashion industry is booming. The street-wise designers are beginning to look at how best to command a slice of the mass market, the more couturish at how to create the perfect salon and then expand.
As she should be, Marianne Fassler was the hot ticket for opening night. Her every move was being recorded by CNN and she threw the works at them. Opening with a deejay who looked like he’d just stepped out of The Fight Club and a drag artist dancing in a leopard-print bodystocking, the Fabulous Fassler Follies were all about glamour in a war zone camo and rhinestone, African beading and punky pinstripe.
Fassler also chose Fashion Week to launch her toddlers’ and children’s range, named after her granddaughter Sibella. A bratpack of 20-odd kids strode triumphantly down the ramp ballerina babies, little punk chicks, toddler nurse chic, a little general and combat cowboys. Fassler called them her Heroes and Angels and they stole the show as she knew they would. They did more than that, of course. They also kicked the Fassler philosophy out to a new generation. And despite the drunken mutterings of a few grumpy trendoids afterwards, it’s clear that there’s a reason Fassler’s so huge: you don’t have to go via Europe to get her. She’s always told an African story.
If Fassler offered up hope and pride, on day two Stoned Cherrie carried the theme through and hit home. The collective of designers brought together by entrepreneur Nkhensani Manganye stole the limelight for the second year in a row. The team Nokwandah Ngcobo, Thabani Mavundla, Sonja Niewoudt, Nomalanga Nyanda and jewellery designer Zoja Mihic presented a range both elegant and relevant: bold young women decked in gear stitched with political references. A collaboration with Bailey’s Historical Archive offered Drum magazine cover prints on the fabric. Stoned Cherrie’s Earthwear, Hardware and Software offered natural hair, sexy crochet, militant camo and shades of rasta. More than any other show, Stoned Cherrie straddled the divide between Africa and the West, streetwear and couture. Female coup leader-glamour meets retro pleats in perfect lines. What more could a girl ask for?
How about an Abigail Betz? Betz and Row-G’s Rahim shared the rest of the platform. In Betz, French Moulin Rouge met Latin America in a classic, antique range of sheer fabrics that was at the same time ridiculously modern. That vamp/victim thing Betz does is all about honesty and disguises. You never know if the models are there to seduce you or if they’ve just been abused. Betz smeared the past on to her fabrics by employing special fabric painting techniques. Row-G’s “impulsive luxury” played clean lines off against obscured ones and set out to “deliver daydreams to a dreary world”.
Later that evening, Black Coffee proved that you don’t have to be huge if you show alone. Each garment was a work of art wrapped in a concept. Opening with ballerina models slowly turning to unravel a piece of fabric and releasing ageless frocks with graffiti panels and handwriting on the skin, Black Coffee’s collection was layered and meaningful. “Twinkle twinkle titty twister, you tricked your mom and killed your mister,” chants a soundtrack before giving way to two underground club divas live in Black Coffee and Debbie Harry rapping in French. The show was a tribute to women who reacted against conventions.
After that all eyes were on David West. Despite Stoned Cherrie’s nomination, rumour had it that the final night’s FairLady Catherine Award for best designer was down to West or Black Coffee. About to launch in London, the controversial Cape Town designer showed very late into Thursday night. And it was well worth the wait. Coming from a diametrically opposite place to the rest of Fashion Week, West looked back at his first seven collections and set his clean- cut streetwear off against an impeccable, modern and fluffy birthday party movie. Revising ranges one to seven with garments numbered one to seven and bearing the name of each day of the week, his character models walked in figures of eight on an open floor, almost treading on the audience.
In the end Jacques van der Watt from Black Coffee lifted the Catherine and he deserved it. What the award proved was how tight the competition has got now that the new school has moved to the next level, and that it was a year of truly exciting contrasts, not just the abundance of black and white, the girls in ties and the military tones for Spring. At Fashion Week street and pop culture met couture. Nostalgia found a way forward. It was all about identity.