Channel to strut fashionable Africa

Published Feb 25, 2013

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Just when you think television channels dedicated to fashion can’t possibly deviate from the formula, comes Fashion One Africa. A new offering on satellite pay-TV provider, TopTV, Fashion One Africa will be broadcast on channel 179 from March 1. The channel promises to be different in that the content will not strictly be about catwalks.

Fashion One representative for South Africa Joanne Raphael Katz said: “Although TopTV carries a fashion channel (FTV), Fashion One is really different. We are a “fashionable” lifestyle channel.

“Catwalks, couture, apparel and accessories are only one part of Fashion One Africa – but is 90 percent of the content of the other channel.”

She quoted the inimitable Coco Chanel: “ ‘Fashion is not something that exists in dresses only. Fashion is in the sky, in the street, fashion has to do with ideas, the way we live, what is happening.’

“In this regard, Fashion One’s content covers fashion in art, design, sculpture, urban landscapes, architecture, industrial design, music and cultural events that are trendy and part of fashionable pop culture.”

Content from mother channel Fashion One TV in the UK will be meshed with content that takes on a particular continental flavour.

Apparently viewers can expect to see plenty of South African shows as well as shows about the rest of the African content.

Katz says that among the footage that has already been shot and anticipated to air is “David Tlale, Marianne Fassler, Gavin Rajah, Kluk, Mimi Plange, launch of Designer Capsule Collection at Edgars, African Fashion Inter- national Fashion Weeks, SA Fashion Weeks, and Destiny Magazine Fashion Shoots, featuring Pan African models and designers”.

“Every month we meet a different magazine with different angles, Red Carpet Party Events like the White Party at Tasha’s, Hyde Park Valentines Party, Style Awards, Africa Fashion Awards, Crowning of Miss SA, J&B Met and, coming up shortly, Glamour Magazine Oscar Awards, Veuve Clicquot Polo Masters, and Design Indaba Cape Town. In the planning is also Brew and Post Bloggers Breakfasts, where fashion and food percolates and gets filtered.”

Designers from the rest of the continent include Etienne Marcel, Said Marouf and Olivia Ervi.

Katz said: “We are working on a series of designers’ profiles in Nairobi and an exclusive content around the Masai – Dandies of Africa. Already shot is Black Fashion Week, which was shot at the Buddha Bar, Paris – where black designers in the diaspora showed their fabulous works – and Trend Africa Spring Summer.”

Fashion One Africa is a refresh- ing addition to Top TV, which lost no less that three channels – Star!, Silver and Showtime – in one go at the end of last year.

Top TV vice president of marketing Heather Kennedy said: “The content team is busy evaluating options to replace these channels. There is nothing firm to announce right now. We will advise as soon as there is something to announce.”

For now, there’s Fashion One Africa.

• Fashion One Africa will be on channel 179 on Top TV from March 1.

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