SA Fashion Week returns to showcase its 41st season
THIS weekend, the Crystal Court in the Mall of Africa will be buzzing with fashion enthusiasts as they gather to view the 2023 Autumn/winter collections by some of South Africa’s most influential fashion designers.
Twenty-seven designers will launch their collections on the runway while 40 will exhibit at the trade show for this year’s SA Fashion Week (SAFW).
CEO of SAFW, Lucilla Booyzen, said this year marked 41 seasons since its inception in 1997.
“We remain committed to the business of fashion, of marketing and supporting our designer entrepreneurs, creatively and commercially and, most importantly, to provide a platform which gives the visibility required to access the local and global fashion industry,” she said.
Booyzen said many of the distinctive tropes that had emerged within the local fashion culture – a fascination with re-imagining our unique cultural references in a modern way, a commitment to slow and sustainable fashion, gender and body inclusivity – are increasingly coalescing into a vibrant ethos with immense marketability.
Three days of back-to-back shows showcased Autumn/winter 2023 collections from designers such as Amanda Laird Cherry, Ephymol, Rubicon, Black Coffee, and SAFW New Talent competition 2022 winner Munkus. These designers offer a preview of what to expect.
Amanda Laird Cherry returns to Durban’s iconic Victoria Street spice market, formerly known as The Indian Market, to draw inspiration from the vivid structural patterns created by the pyramid-like mounds of the spice displays for the collection’s exaggerated woven cut-outs, as well as for the vibrant colours mixed with traditional isishweshwe cloth.
Rubicon, an award-winning brand established in 2002 by Hangwani Nengovhela, is known for releasing iconic collections with impeccable designs. Nengovhela brings subtle African opulence to each collection. For her AW23 Collection, she taps into her Venda
heritage and its natural features of the landscape such as the Phiphidi Waterfall to express the resilience, power and strength of women who, like water, adapt to challenges by discovering new paths to flow smoothly.
With the AW23 Ephymol collection, Ephraim Molingoana expresses the confidence to create a playful, eclectic and gender-fluid collection that discovers the feminine polarity of the masculine. Timeless, bespoke and luxurious remain the hallmarks of one of Jozi’s best-loved designer signatures. This season, Ephymol collaborates with Hopewell Footwear, based in Kwazulu-natal, to develop shoes for his collection.
Molingoana has earned several GQ Best Dressed awards and counts many South African A-list celebrities as clients. With his work and personal style much loved by the media, the brand has been showcased at SA Fashion Week since 2002.
Black Coffee designer Jacques van der Watt takes an evolutionary approach to design, building on what came before.
His AW23 collection re-imagines the most basic of closet staples and combines them with bags and accessories free of animal products. The collection metamorphoses from more utilitarian shapes at the offset to floating exaggerated silhouettes at the completion. Underpinning everything is a larger dialogue about the re-evaluation of norms confined to the male and female forms.
Jacques van der Watt is a master of the discreet style that refines craft, embellishing on traditions such as millinery and applique, and echoing African motifs but with a modern verve.
In her first collection after winning the SAFW New Talent competition in 2022, Munkus designer Thando Ntuli pays homage to her mother in her AW23 collection, called ‘Umama Wami’, or ‘My Mother’. Using her mother as a metaphor, she explores the feminine capacity to adopt a multitude of personas to remain the nurturing centre, despite restrictions and challenges.
“Women are a kaleidoscope of colours. From darkness and cold, women bring light and warmth. Women bring life to any room entered. This collection aims to show the multifaceted feminine which also includes masculine qualities. I combine various weights of cotton fabric, from light and airy to heavier such as bull denim, to convey each persona. There is a focus on technical detail and pops of conceptual print imagery of my mother,” she said.