Cape Town - Fashionistas from across the continent descended on Joburg and Pretoria, eager to be a part of the vibrance, flair and colour of Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week Africa, which is this year showcased the work of 30 designers from 15 African countries.
Fashion Week Africa is the third annual event on African Fashion International’s calendar, after Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week Cape Town and Joburg.
The fourth and final event of the year is the Africa Fashion Awards, which took place on Sunday November 3.
Hosted by the City of Tshwane, most of the Fashion Week Africa runway shows took place in Pretoria’s City Hall.
Cape Town designer Gavin Rajah officially kicked off the event.
He was followed on Wednesday evening by Amaze Africa, a collaborative effort combining fashion, technology and nature. The brand brought together 14 leading fashion and accessory designers from across Africa, paired them up and asked them to present four “exclusive looks that define a futuristic vision for Africa”.
Designers from South Africa, Ghana, Kenya, Tanzania, Angola, the Ivory Coast and Uganda worked together to create “a collaborative aesthetic”, which proved very popular with the fashionista crowd.
Mozambican designer Taibo Bacar, named designer of the year at last year’s Africa Fashion Awards, paired with Cape Town accessory designer Pichulik, with the theme “cycads”, to create an almost tree-like aesthetic of sleek greens and browns, and the ethereal effect of gold hair.
Meanwhile, designers Sunnoz Fiel and Tekasala ma’at Nzinga, for brand Projecto Mental, from Angola, brought Afri-chic suits to the runway, paired with printed bags by Kenyan accessories brand Rift Valley Leather.
Top South African couturier David Tlale closed the first day (October 30). Guests were bundled into buses and transported to a secret off-site location, the Rovos Rail station, where he marked the 10th anniversary of his brand by combining the magic of rail travel and ballet into an enchanting runway show on the platform.
He also showed his ready-to-wear collection, A Celebration of Heritage, with models emerging from the darkness at the end of the platform in vibrant green and red, gold-tinged prints, followed by no less than 20 pink dresses.
Each dress was unique in some way, but mutterings in the audience suggested that the vast number of them might have been slightly unnecessary.
On Thursday night Marianne Fassler watched not from backstage, but smiling from the front row as she presented her own collection of bold and beautiful prints and feminine, flowing dresses.
The highlight was certainly the white-and-grey delicately-printed wedding dress, which created much chatter among the crowd.
Fassler also paired with accessory designer Quamta for Amaze Africa the previous night.
And fellow Amaze Africa participant, Laurence Airline from the Ivory Coast, presented her line of chic, printed menswear followed by menswear by Sheria Ngowi’s menswear collection. Ngowi’s preppy, fun formal-wear and floral, colourful and leopard print blazers created a buzz in the audience. As one audience member commented: “Who knew men could look so sexy in floral.”
On Friday night Bacar was back on the runway for his own show, along with the collections of Bongiwe Walaza, Duaba Serwa, Murade, Mustafa Hassanali and Soucha. - Rebecca Jackman, Weekend Argus