FASHION FOOT FAULT

Why do you not do more to uplift and promote our local fashion industry? Why is the overseas market touted as the beginning and end of fashion? We are producing some fantastic garments here in South Africa, but to a very large extent it is completely ignored in favour of overseas fashion. My daughter’s company is producing incredible stuff at extremely reasonable prices, and totally locally made – fully South African, including all the CMTs, trims, fabric and so forth. No China involved in anything! But it is totally ignored by our South African women’s magazines.

This is a plea to make an attempt to support local. Covid-19 has had a traumatic effect on all of us, but surely the one thing to take away from all this is that fashion should be locally produced. Here ends my rant!

Jenny Rooks

Ed: Annelee, our fashion editor, is absolutely passionate about local brands and South African designers. When I spoke to her about your letter, she said, ‘I would love to feature more local fashion! But it’s difficult: retailers sometimes don’t have enough samples because they’re shooting their campaigns at the same time as our shoots, and they often don’t have product images ready yet because magazines have to work so far in advance. They’re also reluctant to allow me to take the clothing from the stores, because their margins are small and they’re worried about missing out on possible sales.’ These are not excuses at all, but real issues for us. Thanks for pointing this out, though, Jenny – we will try to do better.