With cocktails aplenty and air kisses punctuating the post-show chatter, Johannesburg fashion week might seem to boast the trappings of an international couture event.
But this is fashion week, Africa style.
Instead of skinny models stalking runways, the first major show of the week by label Black Coffee on Wednesday night featured photographs of ordinary-shaped people wearing the clothes while strolling the grubby streets of downtown Johannesburg.
And while designers in Paris or Milan show their collections in avant-garde galleries or sumptuous hotels, getting to the Black Coffee event involved a trip through some of the city’s most chaotic inner-city streets where clapped out mini-buses jostle for space and street hawkers line the pavements.
Fashion in post-apartheid South Africa reflects the country’s journey from pariah state and global backwater to a multiracial democracy with a healthy economy and growing sense of cultural confidence.
”South African style is here and it’s beautiful,” Black Coffee designer Jacques van der Watt said on the 10th anniversary of South African Fashion Week. ”This collection is about South African identity, about exploring our diversity.”
Before apartheid crumbled in 1994, mostly white designers would mimic European designs.
Now many young designers — both black and white — combine indigenous African fabrics with sleek modern lines or funky streetwear and local designers have global ambitions for the continent’s first luxury label, Aziza.
Black Coffee unveiled a gold mini-dress with vibrant African fabric twisted into the skirt, while quilted jackets were reminiscent of elaborate blankets often worn by tribal chiefs.
”Africa is one of the few places in the world wear you can wear a blanket as proudly as a fur coat. We combined this with almost prissy baby doll dresses that show off totally different aspects of our country,” Van der Watt said.
Label Stoned Cherrie, due to show its new collection later this week, adorns T-shirts with iconic prints of political leaders like Steve Biko while label Sun Goddess gives classic African finery a modern twist with dramatic evening gowns.
”For so long we were separated and that was reflected in the way we dressed,” Zimasa Masoko, a fabric technologist at Edgars, said after the show. ”Now everything is getting mixed up, and that’s the real South Africa.” – Reuters