More claims of broken Fashion Week promises emerge
More disappointed fashionistas have come forward with complaints about broken promises and lack of payment from Mandela Bay Fashion Week organisers – with some complaints dating back to the inaugural event in 2016.
Three Nelson Mandela University fashion design students who won a spot at the annual Vukani Fashion awards, organised by renowned Nelson Mandela shirt designer Sonwabile Ndamase, said on Monday they had never received the promised opportunity.
The complaints follow a story in The Herald on Monday about the financial woes of Mandela Bay Fashion Week organisers – that left the holding company in debt and still owing money to service providers.
The winning student designers, Habi Doucouré, Samantha Cunningham and Hannah Maybery, were handpicked by Ndamase after showcasing their designs at the Mandela Bay Fashion Week show in October.
The awards were meant to take place late in 2018 and should have been hosted by Fashion Week organisers instead of Ndamase, who usually hosts the event.
On Monday, Ndamase blamed the Fashion Week organisers for not delivering on promises they had made.
NMU fashion design lecturer Requel Adriaan, who liaised with Fashion Week organisers about her students’ showcasing their designs, said neither she nor the students had received any communication from Mandela Bay Fashion Week founder Llewellyn Williams.
Williams had also not responded to their queries.
“I followed up with Llewellyn, but never got a response,” she said.
“To this day, no-one has said what the way forward is or why the students have not gotten what they were promised.
“It’s quite disappointing that when the university decides to get involved in external projects this is the result that comes out.
“If we had been informed of the reasons behind their failure to deliver, maybe we would have tried to make a plan ourselves but we were left in the dark.”
Doucouré said she was unsure whether they would still be called to showcase their work or not.
“I would still showcase if we were to be given the opportunity, but we don’t know anything about it [because] no-one is saying anything to us.”
Vukani Fashion Awards founder Ndamase said the annual awards were not held in 2018 due to the failure of Williams and his partner, Sanelisiwe Mdashe, to deliver on their side of the agreement.
“Llewellyn and his partner requested that I let them run the Vukani Fashion Awards and add their own flavour to it on the condition that I invite some of the NMU students to showcase at the event at the end of the year, and we agreed on that,” he said.
“However, when I saw that the year was coming to a close
‘No-one has said why the students have not gotten what was promised Requel Adriaan
NMU FASHION DESIGN LECTURER
without any movement from them I followed up with Llewellyn, who then informed me of the feud between him and his partner [Mdashe] and sponsors that had not provided what they had promised.”
Ndamase said because his brand had been dragged into the debacle, he had decided to look for opportunities for the students.
“I will try my best to involve the students on a fashion project that I am working on for 2019 as a way to make up for the awards that never happened,” he said.
Meanwhile, one of the 2016 Mandela Bay Fashion Week winners, Mechero designer Busisiwe Sobopha, said the winners had only received a contract to market their ranges at The Space shop in Baywest and no funds or assistance for manufacturing and related costs.
She said she’d had to take out a personal loan of R15,000 to help get her range into the store.
“The idea we were initially given was that we would also be given financial assistance to help us start off, but when [we] inquired about it Llewellyn said there were no sponsors, which was the same thing he told models.
“All we walked away with was the title and market space that we were told we had to supply with our own money to fill,” Sobopha said.
“After I managed to use my personal loan, I never had anything to do with Mandela Bay Fashion Week.
“It felt like all I really walked away with was just a title because I had to use my own money to take part in the event and still had to get myself into debt for my garments to be marketed at The Space.”
Williams attributed failure to pay his 2018 debts to sponsors, including Renault, singing a different tune to what was allegedly initially agreed upon.
On Sunday, Williams claimed Renault had originally promised an amount of R60,000, before revising that to R30,000 – which, he said, he had never received.
“A day before Fashion Week [started], they [Renault] said they could only give us R30,000 and another R30,000 would be paid after the show had been evaluated,” Williams said.
“On the morning [of the first day] of Fashion Week, they asked for banking details but never deposited the money.
“They never said they were pulling out, it just went quiet.”
Renault representative Nonke Mabizela, however, denied that he had promised R60,000, saying he had only undertaken to ask the company for more than the R10,000 Renault had sponsored in 2016 and 2017.
“After seeing that the event had grown, I said I would push for as much money as I could, without specifying the amount,” he said.
“I spoke to my bosses and they signed off R30,000.
“I am surprised that [Williams] said we had promised R60,000.”
Mabizela maintained that the R30,000 had been paid.
On Monday, Williams did not answer either of his phones despite numerous attempts to obtain comment from him on the new claims.