Why you should buy local fashion

Cape Town 160416 Magents. Wear South Afrcia 2016 campaign promotes homegrown sustainability for the love oof a good label. Wear South African, an initiative of the Southern African Clothing and Textile Workers Union held a fashion show in the food court of Canal Walk. Story by Mika Williams. Photo by Michael Walker

Cape Town 160416 Magents. Wear South Afrcia 2016 campaign promotes homegrown sustainability for the love oof a good label. Wear South African, an initiative of the Southern African Clothing and Textile Workers Union held a fashion show in the food court of Canal Walk. Story by Mika Williams. Photo by Michael Walker

Published Apr 18, 2016

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Cape Town - Emerging designers displayed their collections at the Wear South African fashion show at Canal Walk.

The initiative, in its third- year, was started by the Southern African Clothing and Textile Workers Union and encourages South Africans to become “local label lovers”.

André Kriel, general secretary of the union, said there were 30 000 people working in the clothing and textile industry in the Western Cape.

“These factories are predominantly located in the Cape Town metro and the Boland region as well as Strand. It is the biggest contributor to the provincial gross domestic product each year.”

Kriel said 85 percent of the workers in the industry were women running single-parent households.

“Typically, it’s a mother caring for an extended family of five people per household. Qualified machinists in the Western Cape are paid R990 a week. After deductions they are left with R700, which is not a great wage. In fact, clothing workers are the lowest paid workers in the industrial sector in the country.”

Kriel said the industry used to employ hundreds of thousands of workers nationally until the 1990s, when the government introduced trade liberalisation policies, which saw a surge in imported clothing and textiles, resulting in massive job losses in the industry.

Organiser Wayne van der Rheede said: “I have been in the industry for the past 25 years in various roles. We hosted events like this in 2002 because we felt it was important, as a union, to have a campaign to create awareness in South Africa that buying local also means buying quality goods.”

Government support has steadily increased with more than R7 billion being pumped into the industry towards the revitalisation of the sector since 2009.

Designers who showcased their designs included: Bokang Lehabe, of Bookha Creations; Jade Saunders, of theHive; the House of WearSA brands, which includes B.Zar and Democracy of Denim, by Tamsyn Johannisen; Blue Collar White Collar, by Paul van der Spuy; Magents, by Didier DeVilliers; and Relabelled, by Tey Spanks.

The person behind Bookha Creations, Bokang Lehabe, described his brand as catering for the fashion-conscious who use fashion to express their individuality.

He showed his Arise collection to illustrate the youth uprising: “It consists of six, ready-to-wear pieces and comprises heavy printed raw denim, cotton twirls and is military-wear inspired,” he said.

The B.Zar and Democracy of Denim collection, by Tamsyn Johannisen, who studied at CPUT, incorporates vintage prints and pastels. The B.Zar collection depicts cleaner lines and 1960s-inspired silhouettes.

Johannisen said learning to sew at the age of four on her grandmother’s hand sewing machine kick-started her career in fashion.

“My grandmother used to be a dressmaker and bagmaker and that is where it all started.”

Sunday Argus

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