Rajah returns to Fashion Week
SINCE his 2014 copycat scandal South African designer Gavin Rajah has not showcased at the Mercedes-benz Fashion Week Cape Town.
However, it was recently announced that not only would the controversial designer’s creations be coming back to the ramp this year, he will also be the opening designer of the annual clothing showcase on March 23.
Rajah was surrounded by controversy after one of his designs was called into question for bearing a striking resemblance to a dress by Lebanese designer Zuhair Murad in 2013. There were several other similar incidents in the following years.
Rajah said in an interview with the Cape Times in 2014 that he was so disappointed by the experience that he would “never do fashion week again”.
In an interview with Weekend Argus at his studio space on Heritage Square in Shortmarket Street on Friday, Rajah spoke out about the “career- tarnishing” experience. The designer has now backtracked from his original comment saying: “I said I will not do fashion week if they have people who continue to bring designers down and people who are not supportive of the designers” and “if it’s badly curated from a guest list point of view”.
According to Rajah, the copycat scandal emerged after he walked out at the end of his showing at Durban Fashion Fair in 2014, before that year’s Mercedes-benz Fashion Week Cape Town.
He was wearing a T-shirt with text saying “Why isn’t Gideon showing?” in reference to a designer he felt was excluded.
This, he said, set Durban Fashion Fair organiser Sim Tshabalala off and what sparked the controversy.
“I set myself up for a disaster, sometimes my mouth is too big,” he said. Sim was organising the show, he was excluding designers Rajah alleges. “So imagine that, I go to another province, the capital of corruption, to showcase and their best designer is not showcasing, but I’m invited.”
Before the Durban Fashion Fair, Rajah said he met with the shunned Durban designer to ask why was he not part of the show. According to Rajah, that’s where the “politics of fashion and corruption” emerged.
“So he (Sim) comes to my show, sees a dress and says ‘oh this is a Zuhair Murad dress’.”
Tshabalala was the one to make the connection of the alleged fashion infringement and posted an image of the dresses on social media.
Tshabalala said he knew he had seen the dress before and was able to find an image of the “original”.
“I am not saying Zuhair copied the dress, but it’s not an original dress. Fashion works on trend. My whole thing was on Japan. The cut is different, if you put that dress next to Zuhair, the fit is totally different,” Rajah said. He said because he is an African designer it “is easy to say that I have copied something”.
He said if the tables were turned, as an international designer, no one would have accused him of plagiarism. Speaking about another incident where accusations were levelled against him, Rajah said: “The next thing we were doing a collaboration for wedding dresses, some woman gets friendly with Simphiwe (Tshabalala), and says we have taken her wedding dress. I didn’t take anybody’s s**t. I am still here, still doing business.” He said it was difficult for his collections to not look similar to other designers, because of trends and shopping for fabric at the same stores.
“It’s okay to be inspired by something, you just have to reference it, it is important.”
Rajah will officially launch his mentorship programme called The New Imagineers during his presentation. “They are paid here; they don’t do it for free. I don’t attach my name to whatever work they do,” he said taking a jab at David Tlale’s collection, The Intern.
Fashion politics aside talking about his break from Fashion Week, Rajah said he was busy building his empire and doing a course at Harvard. “I took a break to work on projects. I did a course at Harvard, a global leadership programme, and went back to do more studying.”
He is celebrating his 18th year in the fashion industry and has no plans to retire any time soon.
“So this collection (MBFW2017) is all about people loving each other and being kind and nicer to one another and realising that so much more can happen.
“I use things that relate to the language of love, anything related to symbolism from a Koi fish in Eastern culture to the traditional heart. It’s really about a new sense of beautiful romance.”