African Fashion International (AFI) is celebrating a decade in the fashion and design industry this year.
The organisation is marking this milestone with a return to the city to host the Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week Cape Town 2017 (MBFWCT17) after a year’s hiatus. AFI was established to propel and restore refined African fashion brands on the global stage.
With an understanding of quality and craftsmanship, their mandate is to curate, incubate, and promote refined African apparel and accessories through its world-class marketing and lifestyle events placing it as a Pan-African leader in fashion.
Partnering with Mercedes-Benz SA, AFI aims to take fashionable motoring from the road to the runway; driving home the synergy between hatchbacks and handbags, roadsters and hipsters... bringing guests “the best or nothing”.
Held at the Camps Bay Sports Complex, the three-day affair begins this afternoon and will run until Saturday.
The line-up of designers include some of Africa’s best and there will be a special showcase of some of our fashion’s top moments of the past decade.
“This being AFI’s 10th year anniversary together with our return to the city, we had to back this up with the most exciting designer line-up to show on our platform,” says Bryan Ramkilawan, AFI’s head of Fashion.
“We are relaunching our designer retail space so the public can have direct access to shop the best in South African and Pan-African designer products. We are also introducing our new innovative property: Xperience AFI, a space for fashionistas to enjoy gourmet food, sip delicious cocktails and watch the shows streamed live, while soaking up the beautiful Camps Bay sunsets” he said.
Guests will meet designers and fashion influencers while enjoying unplugged sessions from some of Cape Town’s finest musicians in the Experience AFI
lounge.
Another event highlight is The Designer Boutique and Privé, a platform celebrating the rebirth of retail within the AFI stable.
Affording local and international guests the chance to go through Pan-African pieces, with a carefully curated and designed collection of fusion fabrics, eclectic accessories and handbags, MAC Cosmetics will offer a make-up station for touch ups, while ghd will power a blow dry bar previewing their new products, to give guests the ultimate AFI treatment.
As part of the event build-up, AFI treated the media to take part in a “Road to ramp” experience in collaboration with the Veuve Clicquot Polo held at Val de Vie Estate in Paarl earlier this month.
As AFI’s guests we were chauffeur driven in the latest Mercedes-Benz to Paarl. On the day we were also treated to a fashion showcase by designer Gavin Rajah and Carducci to name a few.
* Follow AFI on Twitter and Instagram: @afi_sa for constant Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week Cape Town updates as well as show schedules.
Tickets are available on www.africanfashioninternational.com
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