Eastern Cape man wins Renault SA Fashion Week New Talent Search:
AN EASTERN Cape designer’s campaign of runway defiance has seen him win the Renault SA Fashion Week New Talent Search.
Inspired by events surrounding the country’s first democratic elections on April 27 1994, Laz Yani’s collection under his label, Cutterier, came out on top with the competition’s judges at the finals in Johannesburg on Thursday night.
Yani, 27, beat out three other finalists to get the nod from a panel of judges that included fashion guru Dion Chang, Black Coffee designer Jacques van der Watt and Nkhensani Nkosi of Stoned Cherrie.
The four finalists showcased their designs with top models in their creations at the opening show on the catwalk at the SA Fashion Week Autumn/Winter 2014 Collections.
Yani, who hails from East London and graduated with a degree in fashion design from the Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University (NMMU), won one shared show at the Spring/Summer 2014 Collections, free space in the Buyers Lounge and the SA Fashion Week Pop Up Shop, R15 000 in cash from Renault South Africa and the use of a Renault Mégane Coupé for a year.
Yani will also get the opportunity to showcase his work in Berlin next year as part of his prize.
“This will not be the first time I will be displaying overseas. I have done a show in Vienna in 2011, when I was in an apprenticeship for David Tlale.”
After Tlale was asked to identity a young talent who would be given the chance to showcase in Vienna, he chose Yani.
“The talent search was nerve-wracking, like all other competitions one enters, but it was all worth it, Yani said. “But although is was gruelling, coming up with the ideas for the collection and conceptualising them was fun.
“Winning the talent search opens access to major industry players, who are an invaluable resource for any designer.”
In his winning collection, Yani went back to the flux of emotions South Africa went through in the lead-up to its first democratic elections.
He used the garments in the range to explore the country as a tortured mind and the mix of emotions it went through before it went to the polls in 1994. Through his light, flowing designs, Yani also wanted to reconstruct the sense of freedom the transition brought.
“When the models were on the runway [at Thursday’s show] they carried passports,
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which symbolised freedom.
“I wanted to go to the depths of what it means to be tortured and how one can find freedom in that. The collection is dark, as it went back to a place that is, perhaps, a fading memory.
“Going back, for me, also meant moving forward. The collection was also a kind of defiance.”
After graduating from NMMU in 2009, Yani received a bursary to train at the London International School of Fashion.
“I come from a traditional family, whose idea of work is a nine to five job. This win . . . validates the legitimacy of my profession,” he said.
The collection is dark, as it went back to a place that is, perhaps, a fading memory