Race day format changes, but fashion still a major part
African News Agency (ANA)
VODACOM Durban July organisers have promised fashionistas and virtual racegoers that fashion, centred around the theme of “butterflies”, will still feature as a major fun element of the big race day.
Following the recent announcement that the 2020 Vodacom Durban July will be run “behind closed doors” at Hollywoodbets Greyville Racecourse on July 25, the events fashion team has said it plans to keep the fashion element of the event “alive wherever possible”.
The team has approached the lockdown situation as an opportunity to think laterally to keep alive the passion for the pre-race day and off-site race day fashion elements – albeit remotely but still remaining as an integral part of the 124-year-old event.
“Fashion will still be a focal point of the Vodacom Durban July, but the format will change to comply with the ‘behind-closeddoors’ requirements of the event,” Tiffany Prior, the event’s fashion co-ordinator, said.
The fashion theme focuses on the “butterflies” experienced when the horses step out on parade, and the colourful “social butterflies” who are “the queens of this day” as they “nimbly flit from flower to flower”, seeking nectar.
“The butterflies theme is amazing as it touches on metamorphosis and change, which is top of the mind at the moment,” Prior said.
She said the Vodacom Durban July Young Designer Award, which is always a vital component of the event’s fashion programme, highlighting students and their design aspirations, would still feature prominently.
“Many of the colleges have had the 2020 Vodacom Durban July as part of their curriculum since the beginning of the year and we will do whatever is technically possible to feature them as part of our race day broadcast,” Prior said.
She said the race day would remain a high point of the fashion calendar, even if spectators were not present to fill the grandstands, suites and hospitality marquees.
“It actually doesn’t matter where you are on the day as we have seen in the past, many people make sure they look amazing.”
“The unique challenge in 2020 is to find a way for people to see you. Use technology to close the distances that we are required to keep between us this year and we will see you, in whatever form,” Prior said.
“At this point there are no invited designers and there will be no show in the traditional sense.”
Karen Monk-Klinjstra, who has been involved with the event for more than 20 years and was an invited designer in 2019, said the organisers had asked her to help inspire this year’s young designers by sending design images and filming herself in her work environment during the lockdown.
Monk-Klinjstra said her interpretation of the theme would not be traditional but rather “playful and exuberant” and an “emergent revival of something sacredly beautiful”. “In the lockdown, we have all been cocooned in our spaces and we will be slowly released to society, so in terms of the theme and the lockdown, the two work well together.
“One of the positive aspects of the lockdown is that it has been a time of honing skills, being with family, music, reading, and arts and crafts. The theme of the butterflies and the Vodacom Durban July going ahead behind closed doors is a marvellous way of reinventing the race,” Monk-Klinjstra said.