Runway Africa

Runway Africa: I movement dedicated to showcasing, promoting and exposing African designers to the masses. According to their site,

“Runway Africa believes strongly that by exposing African designers to the global market, Africa (as a whole) will begin to see a change in each country's economic and social agendas. By stimulating growth in the textile and garment industries, Africa can begin to see some economic stability in those areas. In essence, this kind of mass exposure puts the continent's talent and creativity in global markets and increases the ability to manufacture apparel deriving from Africa.”

Sounds good so far but how do they plan on doing it? Well, they hold a series of events, mainly on the east coast, to highlight specific designers and raise money for a cause. Their next event is being held tonight at Posh in DC and presents Harreit’s Alter Ego designer and creator, Ngozi Odita. The event is in celebration of African Women’s Day and the money raised will go towards Keep A Child Alive.

The main event takes place this September. Runway Africa 2007 will be held in D.C. at the Embassy of France. Designers Ruby (South Africa), Sika Designs (Ghana), Bezeymailan (Togo), Blokes ‘n’ Divas (Nigeria) and Harriet’s Alter Ego (Nigeria) will all showcase their “Africhic” lines at what will be one of the events of the year. Visit http://www.runwayafrica.com/ for more details.

Photos from past Runway Africa Events.

South African Fashion Week Expands...

Following on from our discussion on South African fashion I thought you’d all be interested in reading the article below and watching this video footage. It was recently announced in SA that two fashion weeks would be added to their fashion scene. Keep an ear to the ground for Johannesburg and Cape Town Fashion Week this March (Autumn/Winter) and July (Spring/Summer).

SA Fashion to Receive a Major Boost

The fashion landscape of South Africa is set to receive a major re-shuffle with the announcement of two new world-class fashion weeks.

The events fill a long standing gap in the fashion calendar for an Autumn/Winter fashion week to bring South Africa in line with the international fashion calendar.

The Autumn/Winter Fashion Weeks will take place in March 2007 under the titles: Cape Town Fashion Week and Jo’burg Fashion Week. The events will run within days of each other to allow greater access by foreign media and trade.

The move was prompted by pressure from designers and fashion media to have a platform for Autumn/Winter collections and represents a coming of age for South African fashion; finally giving local designers a platform to compete on a global level year round.

The two new dates on the fashion calendar compliment the three major Spring/Summer fashion weeks that take place annually between June and July and the organisers will be looking at further synergies between all of these events.

“This is the most significant move in African fashion in the last decade; and represents a major leap forward for our designers. The launch of these events allows our designers to now compete internationally in both fashion seasons. Our goal is to make the world-class talent of South African designers more accessible to international audiences. We are looking forward to meeting with government and SACTWU in the hope that we can make sure the benefits of these Fashion Weeks are spread across the entire industry,” said Paul Jackson, Managing Director of Leisureworx.

This is the first major step towards a Pan-African fashion series involving partner events from across the continent.

As part of the initiative, driven by the need to make South African fashion more accessible to foreign trade audiences, Cape Town Fashion Week and Durban Fashion Week will be co-operating to hold Spring/Summer events back-to-back in 2007. [Source]

Dates for Spring/Summer 2006:
• Nokia Cape Town Fashion Week
11th -15th July

Dates for Autumn/Winter 2007:
• Jo’burg Fashion Week
28th February - 3rd March

• Cape Town Fashion Week
7th March – 10th March

Note: Jo’burg Fashion Week Autumn/Winter is a new, separate and distinct fashion week from South Africa Fashion Week (SAFW) Spring/Summer.

Cross Over to the Dark Side…

Themba Mngomezulu, the designer behind the label 'Darkie.'Photos from Darkie's fashion shows. One from a recent Levi's Show (first left) and the other three from South African Fashion Week, 2004/05.

South African fashion is so overlooked it borders on ridiculous. Fear not, while surfing the net I found an essential web site for those who are interested in keeping up-to-date with urban culture, lifestyle and general news in Joannesburg, Cape Town and other cities. There may be better sites out there but I quite like this one called Rage. While on the site I read about an emerging fashion guru called Themba Mngomezulu who designs for "Darkie," the label he founded in 2002. Themba credits his mother for his initial interest in fashion. She would trade second hand clothing from their garage and he still buys items from her to this day. With fashion in his veins, Themba moved to Cape Town in 2004 to fully realize his dream and with the help of his new partner, Azaad Carrim, Themba now runs a design house with 25 employees. He says of his design aesthetic:

‘We’re a fast-forward brand. We like to design both locally and globally. We’re a South African design team and we’re creating our Darkie style. We try not to focus solely on the international influences because they don’t understand our style. South Africa has an amazing 11 different cultures and that inspires us every day.’

Darkie is primarily a sportswear/lifestyle label. Many of their t-shirts feature cultural icons such as Muhammad Ali, Ray Charles and Nelson Mandela and their favortie material of choice seems to be denim. You can read more about Themba here. I’ve yet to find a web site but I’ll keep you posted ;)