FollowBy CIANO CLERJUSTE
African Fashion International (AFI) made history in South Africa this year, with its first edition of Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week Joburg, which took place at Hyde Park in the historic metropolitan city.
When United Colors Of Fashion was planning its 2012 charity trip to South Africa, we thought it was fitting to plan the trip around Joburg Fashion Week- we use Fashion For Humanitarian Causes and our pursuit to bring hope and a sense of well- being to about forty-five HIV-infected children at Mapetla Day Care in Soweto, the time with AFI was ideal.
During our sojourn, we met with the hospice´s staff to conduct fashion workshops, and taught them styling tips, how to dress for success, current fashion trends, and held a memorable party for the children. We also donated clothing, jewelry, shoes and bags we brought from New York to the hospice shop for resale. The profits from the shop, help the patients living with HIV/AIDS at the Soweto Hospice.
During the day we were doing charity work, and at night we attended all the shows at Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week, thanks to media passes, courtesy of AFI.
The History of Fashion Week
The world´s first organized fashion week was held in New York in 1943. Back then it was called “Press Week.” The event was organized as a tactic of drawing attention away from French fashion during the Second World War. At the time, fashionistas were unable to travel to Paris to see fashion shows. Press Week was organized by fashion publicist Eleanor Lambert, with the hope of allowing American fashion designers to showcase their designs to fashion journalists.
Today, the industry has evolved into a mega industry. It now generates $466M in direct visitor spending per year ($233M each Fashion Week) bringing up to $773M in economic impact annually ($386M each Fashion Week). Source: NYCED, 2007
Its current personification started in 1993, when they started combining all the shows into one location at Bryant Park, in midtown NYC.
New York Fashion Week draws press delegation from 30 countries. For us in the fashion industry, this is a major press event. It kicks off international Fashion Weeks, with London, Milan and Paris.
Without a doubt, Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week Joburg has a long way to go before it can be compared to New York or Paris. However, everyone was pleased with the first edition. Despite a few misfortunes, such as the size of the venue, which we thought was too small for such a huge event, and the lack of parking at Hyde Park. All went well. Unfortunately, Johannesburg has an antiquated transportation system, and this made it even harder for international visitors to attend all the shows. New Yorkers can easily be frustrated by this transportation system. However, the city is working hard on making the system better.
Furthermore, the Joburg fashion industry is becoming very important, but not yet on an international scale. Maybe in two to five years from now.
Mercedes-Benz, which sponsors a plethora of Fashion Weeks around the world, has signed a contract with African Fashion International for three years, as the title sponsor. With this partnership, African Fashion International will continually be one of the leading organizers of such a glitzy event in South Africa.
A Review of Some of The Best Shows
When reviewing the trends designers presented in New York, Paris, Milan and Johannesburg, one can see that Fall 2012 did not offer a plethora of melodramatic changes in fashion. It´s evident that some of the trends from last season or this spring appear to linger, but in a different format. There were a lot of peplums, florals, Peter Pan, metallics, military looks, and white. Huge belts have been back for a number of seasons now, but they certainly got bigger in size this season.
At many of the shows, one was able to see that burgundy was one of the dominant colors on the runway, especially for David Tale´s “Glam Intersection.” David Tlale refers to the collection as “where vintage meets current/future trends and bringing back glamour to the streets, office and the Red Carpet. It´s a fusion of the `50s and `70s interpretation of todays trends.”
Mr. Tlale is known to some as “Drama Tlale” and to others as a gifted designer. Most people who came to his show were waiting for the drama. Surprisingly, the only drama was the designer himself walking down the runway first, towards the stairs at the beginning of the ramp, while blowing a trumpet to signal the beginning of his Ready-to-Wear show.
Mr. Tlale presented a cohesive collection. He had pencil skirts in various lengths, blouses with bouquet sleeves detailing, beautiful classic jackets and a lot of pret-a-porter garments. Everyone knows that Mr. Tlale loves colors, and he used them very well in this collection. He had peplum, camel, beige, green, brown, sunrise yellow, orange, white, grey, gold and black.
Some of my favorite pieces of his collection were: the bouquet sleeve blouse, draped jacket, draped couture black cocktail dress, draped Jacky-o dress, height waist skirt, and the short leather skirt. His choice of models was also great, especially the ones from Hadja Model Management. One can wear ever-single piece from the collection.
We simply wanted to see a proper show-stopper finale gown, which Mr. Tlale did not give us. The white finale gown simply did not do the trick.
Another show, which stood out was the AFI Fast Track, which runs as a national designer search in South Africa and offers the finalists an opportunity to launch their design careers through AFI´s mentorship program and business development assistance.
This year, a total of twelve young talented designers were selected from different establishments across the country to showcase their designs. The collective show was amazing. The collections were well constructed with luxurious fabrics and great attention to details. The winners were Kim Gush, Wetive Nkosi, Kyra-Moon Halfpenny and Shelly Botha-whom won a R10,000 cash prize ($1 = R8.18).
All the finalists were awesomely talented, and we must applaud AFI´s executive chair, Dr. Precious Molo-Motsepe for such an amazing initiative.
Thula Sindi strayed away from his comfort zone by showcasing a very high split gold dress as his finale look (the model did not do it justice). It was a beautiful and colorful collection. I admire Thula Sindi´s designs and am even more fond of his humble personality. However, I wanted to see more from Mr. Sindi. I received a personal invitation from him directly before I left New York. Therefore, I was eager to see the show. Surprisingly, his show appeared to be a bit more restrained than the normal luxurious collection one would expect. I guess it´s because he is going more commercial with his line. Regardless, the designer presented a very feminine collection with a combination of individualism and strength. Mr. Sindi never disappoints. His consumers are always pleased with his work, and constantly delivers quality work timely.
Gavin Rajah, a designer who, I have been following closely for the past three years presented a collection inspired by a Summer rose garden going into Fall. He opened the show with beautiful minimalist dresses in pastels, and very simple, but yet elegant suits. This designer simply has some sort of sophistication about the way he always presents his designs, which I love.
The Avant collection was simply breath taking. The collection had amazing structure, and gave great details to the shape of a woman´s body.
Menswear
I saw three menswear collections, and one of them I would send back to sketching board. That´s Fabiani. The brand is a repetition of the same collection every season and extremely limited when it comes to creativity. I was very bored watching this show. And to my surprise, after the show, our photographer from New York, Lorenzo Torres, said to me “Ciano, what was that?” That´s how dreadful the show was.
C-Squared-this collection was very fresh, classy, simple, and giving a stylish man something to wear to every occasion. The tailored jackets were great, and the attention to details on the shoulders was so “oh-la-la, je veux m´habiller maintenant.” The only confusing part about this collection to me was the summery look. Thought we were watching fall/winter 2012. Yet again, a lot of other designers had a hard time selecting fabrics for the right season.
Jan Malan Productions-to sum up my review about the shows, I must congratulate Jan Malan and his team on a job well done. During fashion week, the media normally focuses on the designs, but never pay attention to production, which actually completes the shows. Without an amazing production team, there will never be beautiful pictures and videos to show the public after the fact.
Most of us in fashion in New York know of Mr. Malan. He has produced some of the best shows for ARISE Collective at NY Fashion Week. To be frank, since he stopped producing the shows for ARISE, the company has not been able to reproduce the same sophistication in their show as they did during the first two seasons.
Jan Malan Production produced a sophisticated top notch event for Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week Joburg. I was able to interact with his team backstage, which is not short of professionalism and extensive experience. All the shows went well because of Mr. Malan. We can guarantee you that you´ll get to see Mr. Malan and his team in New York again before the end of the year. Stay tuned.
Overall, Mercedes-Benz Fashion Joburg went well. With the new title sponsor, in a few years, a lot of people will be traveling to Johannesburg every season to see all the shows, just as they do today for New York, Paris and Milan.
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