Tlale in retail fashion deal

There's a Johannesburg Fashion Week collection to showcase next week and straight after the Drama King of South African fashion will reveal a capsule collection in collaboration with national retailing chain Legit.

Swedish retailer H&M has collaborated in the past with designers such as Alber Elbaz, of Lanvin, and Chanel's creative director, Karl Lagerfeld.

Most recently, H&M collaborated with Donatella Versace on an affordable cruise collection.

The idea sounds simple enough: keep the brand's essence, use more affordable fabrics to give your everyday customer the chance to wear Lanvin or Versace at prices that won't break the bank.

After six years of successful collaborations with celebrities such as Noni Gasa and Minnie Dlamini, the former presenter of SABC1's Live, Legit has decided to follow in the footsteps of the likes of H&M.

"We wanted to offer our customers something new and David Tlale is hot property in terms of South African fashion design," said Legit divisional buying manager Hazel Pillay.

As of May, David Tlale's diffusion range Van der Tlale will be available at about 180 Legit stores nationwide. The capsule collection, said the designer, came about after much thought about what it would mean for David Tlale as a brand.

"Van der Tlale has always been around, we just hadn't activated it," he explained.

"So, after much thought and asking questions like, 'Are we going to disappoint our DT clients by going this route?' we decided this was a great opportunity to finally launch an affordable ready-to-wear range."

The winter range will retail at normal Legit prices allowing the retailer's young and trendy market to afford a slice of DT.

The David Tlale brand is, however, not known for following trends but, to appeal to this market. "We've really focused on not losing the essence of the brand," he said.

"I can't exactly ask for feathers, for example, but we are definitely doing it in such a way that it can be in the Legit price bracket without losing the David Tlale signature."

And this being a winter collection, consumers can rest assured that colour blocking - a trend that is proving to have staying power despite the end of summer - will be in the mix alongside leopard print and faux fur.

"Trends are what people want," said the celebrated designer.

"We have to be in line with that but still have the element of freshness."

The range is a once-off, never to be repeated, and will be in stores from 4 May 2012.

Source: The Times