Fashionably crowded

The inaugural Audi Jo’burg Fashion Week follows on the heels of the injection of Motsepe money into the South African fashion industry.

Dr Precious Moloi-Motsepe, wife of billionaire Patrice Motsepe, is the new chairperson of Leisureworx, the events company organising the show, and owns the rights to Nokia Cape Town Fashion Week and MTN Durban Fashion Week. But the entrance of Moloi-Motsepe and yet another event to the country’s crowded fashion calendar has again highlighted the plight of the beleaguered industry.

Lucilla Booyzen, director of Sanlam SA Fashion Week and Leisureworx’s chief competitor, has come out strongly against the Audi Jo’burg Fashion Week, not only because it comes just a few months before SA Fashion Week’s first winter collection in March, but because she believes yet another fashion week is detrimental to the industry.

‘If, as an industry, we want to be taken seriously as part of the international fashion status quo, we are in grave danger of diluting our message with a fashion week in every one of our cities — the international community does not grasp that so they dismiss it,” says Booyzen.

However, according to designers taking part in this week’s event, this is not the case.

‘In the end, fashion weeks are about the designers,” says designer Gavin Rajah. ‘It is very important for organisers on all sides to find common ground. There is a need to go back to why it all started and find a way to move forward.”

Rajah, who will be showcasing his Paris collection, believes that Moloi-Motsepe’s entrance ino the industry is a breath of fresh air.

‘Precious is very involved in taking things on,” he says. ‘The industry has been stagnant over the last few years and needs someone like Precious to take things to another level. Precious has vision and she acts on it.”

Malcolm Klûk of KlukCGdT makes the point that fashion in South Africa is just starting out and it is crucial for designers to showcase their work in as many of the country’s city centres as possible. ‘We need to get our clothes out there to all our customers.”

Designer David Tlale agrees that, ultimately, it’s about business, and the designers who form the heart of South African fashion.

‘At the end of the day all we want is to do business and grow our brand, and reach everyone in South Africa and internationally,” he says. ‘If the two parties came together and all the designers could be showcased under one umbrella it would be the greatest.”

Moloi-Motsepe is adamant that the local fashion industry, struggling as it is, has great potential. ‘The industry can help in terms of poverty alleviation, skills transfer, job creation,” she says.

But for designers who aren’t headline names at events like Audi Jo’burg Fashion Week, working in the industry poses other challenges: ‘There is a very set agenda at fashion weeks,” says Cape Town designer and entrepreneur Susan Searle.

‘It promotes established brands and it’s very difficult for entrepreneurs. And a fashion week’s not the correct platform for many brands anyway.”

Searle argues that South Africa sorely lacks adequate platforms such as trade shows where designers of every description can come together to showcase their work to retailers and others. And, while she supports the intentions behind the textile quota system, Searle thinks it is not supplying the industry with long-term solutions. Creating a more competitive workforce in the South African textile industry, for example, is something she feels should happen first.

‘Why is it so important to call it fashion week anyway, why not a fashion festival?” she asks. ‘Maybe we should even be thinking about hosting events somewhere off the conventional fashion radar — like PE.”

Audi Jo’burg Fashion Week takes place from February 14 to 17 at Nelson Mandela Square in Sandton. Tickets are available from Computicket