Fashion confederation needed

Call me a Pollyanna, but even though I've never watched an entire soccer match in my life, my chest swelled with pride when I overheard someone saying that FIFA is calling Soccer City the best soccer stadium in the world.

The thought of half-a-million people pouring into my country for a soccer holiday this time next year is crazily exciting.

I simply can't relate to the bah-humbug types who say they are leaving home when the soccer hooligans come to town.

My local Italian joint claims its national team is coming for dinner one of these evenings and I'm even contemplating popping in for a pizza takeaway just so that I can breathe in some of the soccer-mania myself.

And so, when the fashion cynics raise their eyebrows over Arise Africa Fashion Week which kicks off in Sandton tomorrow evening, I say they need to drop their pose and enjoy the event for what it is: a glorious eight-day-long showcase of African design that is certain to attract some measure of attention to the fashion activities on our continent.

By now, we're coming to terms with the fact that none of South Africa's fashion weeks are on the calendar of the world's serious fashion media or buyers, nor are they likely to get there soon.

I would imagine that countries like Nigeria, Kenya, Ghana and Ethiopia, which also host national fashion weeks, are in a similar predicament, frustrated that top French designers have been known to use African elements in their collections but our own designers seldom hit the big time over there.

So if, individually, African fashion weeks are never going to make it onto the very busy travel schedules of the international fashion set, aren't we better off hunting in a pack and using our collective design clout to attract the fashion world's attention?

As Precious Moloi-Motsepe, whose outfit African Fashion International has founded Arise Africa Fashion Week to coincide with the Confederations Cup, said: this is going to be the mother of all fashion weeks.

This year, 51 designers are taking part in 21 shows over a period of eight days.

That's a lot of fashion put together in record time.

Who knows what they'll pull off next year when it happens all over again to coincide with the World Cup?

The thinking is that, if the shows are a success, the Africa Fashion Week concept will start moving around the continent and be hosted by a different country every year.

It's not inconceivable that, when presented with the option of attending a professionally packaged, elegantly edited, Africa fashion highlights event, the big fashion names will factor an African detour into their diaries.

I have no doubt this fashion week will deliver the professionally packaged bit. Then it's up to the designers and the stylists to do the rest. The designers need to deal with the perception that African fashion is more costume than design and create collections with international, wearable, appeal.

The stylists and producers need to put together slick fashion shows instead of spectacles — in which the models wear beautiful shoes that fit them — and we might just have the makings of an event with some exciting commercial potential.

Source: The Times

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