The Devil Wears Prada did a great disservice to the reputations of fashionistas. Possibly Meryl Streep-type über-bitches, whose style-Nazi commands filter down to the plebs on the street, do exist. Particularly since the book and subsequent film are allegedly based on United States Vogue editor Anna Wintour. But the reality, at least in South Africa, is that fashion is a collective effort — something that Lucilla Booyzen, director of Sanlam South African Fashion Week (SSAFW) and one of the local industry’s leaders, is quick to point out in the run-up to this year’s summer collections.
There is nothing resembling the prima donna about Booyzen as she seats herself at a large work table for the interview. Togged out, almost entirely in black, wearing flat, dark pumps, she exudes a clean pragmatism, while the frenetic energy of the fashion week office in Rosebank whirls around her. And yet as the interview progresses, Booyzen’s passion for the local fashion industry becomes increasingly apparent.
A trained teacher, Booyzen left the classroom after three years to become a model. In 1984, however, she started Runway Productions. It was through this company that she began producing fashion shows, usually through corporate sponsorships. But, she says, she wanted to move away from shows where the producer was king and the designer was not.
”We needed an open platform where the producers don’t choose the designer, where people can say, ‘I’m good enough, no one can choose me,”’ she says. Along with that idea and knowing that South Africa needed a national platform to enter the global fashion business, she set about creating our first fashion week.
The SSAFW had its 10th anniversary last year and has come a long way since its beginning, held in a wedding marquee raised on 3m-high scaffolding, she says. And educating people about everything to do with a fashion week was one of the hardest things to achieve that first time round.
From an audience who, according to Booyzen, had to learn that viewing fashion did not mean sitting around corporate dinner tables, and designers who had to start using shows to launch collections rather than creating small ranges for shows, to a press corps that swelled from 10 people to the hundreds that now line the catwalk, the SSAFW has evolved into the massive project it is today.
And it has become more than just a showcase for interesting clothes on leggy models. The arts and culture fashion fusions programme has linked crafters from across the country with a host of designers to help fashion become a sustaining force in the lives of hundreds of men and women outside mainstream retail markets. When asked how craft elements came to be included in the SSAFW, Booyzen says the lack of the ”right” fabric for South African designers meant that new ways to differentiate local fashion from international work was needed.
”I thought that with designers in touch with crafters, it would make our stuff different,” she says. ”A designer could take a simple fabric, like a silk or a cotton, embellish it and create a unique identity.”
”We also link crafters to designers with their own stores to make sure it’s sustainable,” she says of the programme. Having incorporated more than 675 crafters into the SSAFW over the past three years, Booyzen names it among her greatest achievements to date.
”This year we are really starting to see the fruit of this process as the participating designers feature more and more of that crafting component in their work,” she says. ”Abigail Betz with beautifully hand-stitched embroidery on a garment that six women worked on, for example, or Terrence Bray showing very contemporary but hand-worked appliqués.”
Her aim is to secure the sustainability of the project in the long term and to focus on ”the big picture”, which ultimately will mean exporting more South African labels internationally.
The local industry’s greatest strength is the wealth of creative talent, fed by our rich heritage of cultural craft and design and, according to Booyzen, the SSAFW’s job is to be the platform for that talent.
The mushrooming of fashion week is the pressing issue that cannot be ignored, as Jo’burg bolts out two fashion events in the space of two weeks. Booyzen believes, though, that the SSAFW has retained its authority amid the plethora of showcases by focusing on unearthing new talent and focusing on the designers.
”We want our audience to be wowed by the design, not by the show business. This year, for example, we will be scaling down the technology and featuring fewer things like [audiovisual elements] to create that pared-down environment that can show the garments to maximum effect,” she says.
She explains her positioning in the industry like this: ”I need to create the walls of a gallery so that the art can speak for itself — It’s about how the designers’ clothes speak to the audience.”
She displays remarkable equanimity about how she has been portrayed in the media, particularly when it comes to her belief that so many fashion weeks fragment the industry. ”I move on,” she says, ”I’m big enough, I’m grown up enough to get on with things.”
In fact, Booyzen can only commend the press for its coverage of the local fashion industry.
”The media have been great; it is as if they are as proud of local fashion as we are,” she says.
And pride in local fashion is something the consumer must cultivate. Booyzen believes that men, in particular, need to see fashion ”not as a threat”, but rather as a tool. By ”using fashion you can move through any level of society” she says, and South Africans need to ”play with it”, to ”live it”.
As retailers, magazine editors, the press and designers converge on the Sandton Convention Centre this week, living local fashion, it seems, is finally an acknowledged staple of South African culture.
The details
Sanlam South African Fashion Week (SSAFW) week kicked off at the Sandton Convention Centre this week with no less than 50 designers on show. Top names such as Craig Native, Amanda Laird Cherry and Clive Rundle will exhibit amid the plethora of creative talent being hosted over the four-day event.
Alongside the collections, the SSAFW runs an arts and culture fashion seminar where national and international industry experts explore topical issues in the industry. They include Marlene Cardin, co-founder of Videofashion Network, one of the world’s largest producers and distributors of fashion; beauty and style programming and former South African designer Alex Koutny, currently based in New York. In panel discussions, experts will address problems such as what retailers are doing to support local talent.
SSAFW is also hosting its annual exhibition featuring 120 labels supplying clothes and accessories. The London International School of Fashion, in collaboration with the Industrial Development Corporation, will display new Incubator range. The project aims to grow a product range that incorporates clothes made from locally produced linen for the first time. Every day, the Netronics French Embassy Fashion Theatre will screen films from across Africa.
SSAFW winds up late on September 1 and is open to the public daily. Designer collections run from noon to 9.30pm and tickets cost R150. Daily entrance to the exhibition, which runs from 9am to 5pm, will cost R50. The seminars can also be attended and a number of packages can be bought, costing between R350 and R600 a day. For more information go to www.sanlamsafashionweek.co.za
Tickets can be bought at Mr Price ticket connection stands or online at www.ticketconnection.co.za. — Lynley Donnelly
Office bling
A side dish to the diet of fashion this week at the Sandton Convention Centre is the arrival of Mice and More. This collection of designer Swiss computer mice was launched from its very own ”mousewalk” (as opposed to catwalk).
Says entrepreneur Kathy Berman: ”I have always wanted to be a mouse wife! No seriously, though, I have always wondered why office accessories have to be so grey.”
The website shows an array of designer mice from corny cow skin finishes to brain-shaped mice, Japanese Zen mice, zebra skin, red- hot chillies and the ”diamond flower” crafted from 18-carat white gold and studded with 59 diamonds.
Berman says: ”There are at least 30 retail designs that can be customised for corporates. So that way one can have brands at the palms of the clients’ hands, or at their fingertips.”
Berman stands a chance of profiting from the corporate gift sector about to kick into production for the festive season. Beyond the Christmas rush she is planning to go into full-scale production of office accessories originating from local design sources. ”We are going to be producing local designer mouse pads and we intend to collaborate with local designers to make office accessories like computer bags using interesting fabrics and possibly ideas from the craft sector.” — Matthew Krouse
To view the full catalogue of designer mice visit www.miceandmore.net or call Tel: 0861 666 423
