Second Skin is no ordinary fashion show. It is a celebration of interdisciplinary innovation, a place where design, sustainability, and bold imagination converge. Built environment students step out of their traditional roles and into the world of fashion, crafting avant-garde garments using repurposed building materials.
Inscape Second Skin Garments themed Afrika Burn - Photos: Christiaan du Plooy
Inscape Second Skin Garments themed Afrika Burn - Photos: Christiaan du Plooy
This year’s theme, Afrika Burn, challenged students to interpret the spirit of radical self-expression, resilience, and creativity through material and form, giving new life to old matter, one garment at a time.
The event, hosted in the iconic piazza of Menlyn Maine, showcased extraordinary student work from Inscape’s Pretoria and Midrand learning hubs, attracting industry heavyweights and igniting meaningful conversations around sustainability, self-expression, and design for impact.
Simultaneously, Second Skin took place across all Inscape learning hubs, Cape Town, Durban, and Stellenbosch, demonstrating the institution’s commitment to collaborative creativity and national reach. Each hub embraced the spirit of the project while celebrating the unique perspectives of its respective student communities.
At the Pretoria exhibition, students were given the rare opportunity to present their creations to an audience of renowned industry leaders, including:
- Irene Kakooza, Brand Manager for Range Rover and Jaguar, known for her work at the intersection of luxury, design and brand storytelling.
- Anna-Mari Claasen, acclaimed fashion designer, exhibition curator, and connector in the South African creative industry.
- Glorinah Mabaso, multi-disciplinary designer whose work spans pattern and furniture design, and who is recognised for her contemporary African design language.
- Hein Liebenberg, Senior Lecturer at Inscape, who provided mentorship and academic framing to the student designers throughout the project.
Second Skin is not only a celebration of aesthetic ingenuity but a critical exploration of how identity is constructed, perceived, and communicated through design. Each student’s ‘second skin’ was developed through a process of introspection, research, and material experimentation, resulting in bold, narrative-driven wearable pieces that confront issues of sustainability, identity, and transformation.
Inscape Second Skin Garments themed Afrika Burn - Photos: Christiaan du Plooy
Inscape Second Skin Garments themed Afrika Burn - Photos: Christiaan du Plooy
This national roll-out of Second Skin is aligned with Inscape’s 2025 strategy of increasing industry engagement, community collaboration, and public visibility for student work. By activating high-footfall spaces like Menlyn Maine and including key stakeholders from the design and business sectors, the event underscored Inscape’s role as both an academic institution and a platform for creative impact.
“The support from Menlyn Maine provided our students with real-world exposure and amplified the purpose of the project, to express, to challenge, and to connect,” said Mignon Louw, Head of Marketing at Inscape. “It’s one thing to design in the classroom, but it’s another to present that work to respected voices in the industry and the public. This event did both.”
With its focus on identity, sustainability, and collaboration, Second Skin reaffirms Inscape’s dedication to producing work-ready, life-ready, society-ready, and challenge-ready graduates who do more than imagine change; they wear it.
