Yet another spat in the ongoing ”catwalk catfight” has erupted between fashion designer Gavin Rajah and Dion Chang, director of Sanlam South African Fashion Week.
In an article on the Women24.com website, Chang set more feathers flying by attacking as ”ill-conceived” the selection of four black local fashion designers to attend Paris Fashion Week.
Chang, in turn, was accused of sour grapes and ”disgusting” behaviour by fashion luvvies. The latest flurry came after designers David Tlale, Thula Sindi, Thabani Mavundla and Sunday Times gossip columnist Craig Jacobs were chosen to showcase their work at one of the world’s toughest and most competitive fashion weeks.
The announcement was made by sponsors SA Tourism and the designers’ patrons, Gavin Rajah and Dr Precious Moloi-Motsepe, amid the frippery of the Audi Jo’burg Fashion Week. It led to Chang’s online posting, which argued that the young designers selected lacked the experience to cope with the demands Paris will place on them.
”Their intentions are very good, but to show in Paris is big cheese and shouldn’t be taken lightly,” Chang told the Mail & Guardian. ”Once you show, you need backup and infrastructure to meet orders should they come your way.
”Three of the four designers don’t even have a business in South Africa. How will they cope with Paris? We have other designers who have more business experience, and I just don’t think this has been thought through very well.”
Chang insisted he was ”not trying to be a killjoy”. ”But let’s give these designers a fighting chance, instead of making them showpieces for a PR campaign.”
In his online response, Rajah, who took part in the selection process, said the point of the exercise was to assist emerging, rather than established, designers. In part, the project aimed to help them acquire the requisite infrastructure.
Thula Sindi, one of the designers selected, said that while Chang ”has a right to his own opinion”, he was thrilled to be heading for Paris. ”We’re not taking this lightly. We know what we’re in for and we have an understanding of what is expected of us,” Sindi said. ”They [the sponsors and patrons] are giving us all the support we need in terms of editing the collections, infrastructure and quality control. It’s not like they are throwing us in at the deep end.”
Jacobs agreed: ”We’re being supported by people of calibre and I don’t think they would just throw us to the lions. It’s my understanding that all the designers selected were vetted by Paris. There’s no way we’d go there showing sub-standard work.”
Chang said that this initiative had to be viewed against the backdrop of ”Godfather of South African fashion” Clive Rundle’s struggle to find sponsorship, despite being invited to show in Paris. This week local band The He-Shes weighed into the debate with their song I Am Dion Chang, which lead singer Nick Wilson described as a gentle poke at Chang and similar ”self-styled fashionistas”.
The song was inspired by a Chang column sneering at distressed jeans. Its lyrics include: ”I’m a fashionista/ I’m the new Batista/ I am Dion Chang.”
”We wanted to explore the idea of the fashion world as a group of fascists who always tell people what they should or shouldn’t wear,” Wilson said.
To hear The He-Shes’ song visit www.myspace.com/heshesband
