Fast Track Day

I arrived downtown Johannesburg in a rather inconspicuous (bar by the crowd) location to a fantastic open-air venue called Fashion Kapitol (which houses Clive Rundle and Bongiwe Walaza's studios).

As this is fashion week, I expected the usual crowd with the usual set-up and usual flow of events... this was a little different. It was a fashion Carnival with Music, dancing, Fashion shows and plenty of drinks and minimal food (it's a fashion event afterall, food is never a priority).

I absolutely enjoyed the change! It had such a lovely buzz and excitement to celebrate the young talents and the crowd cheered and roared which broke the tension from the pursed-lipped conservatives who still believe in subscribing to the "Fashion week" norm.

I sincerely hope that we will see more of this set-up away from the fashion week calendar - I had a lovely time gazing at the young talents' fashion and dancing in between, loosing and finding my phone... such is the life of Joburg CBD, very eclectic and full of life.

Kutloano Molokomme was the first to show and his solid, conceptual, metamorphisis collection stood out from the crowd.



Metamorphosis: The hooded cape, above left, transforms with a pull of a draw-string into this gown with a design-heavy corset to cinch the waist to give the gown structure, above right.

I had a rather interesting conversation with Kutloano regarding his choice of material. Crushed Taffeta is usually overlooked by many designers given that it's a cheap material which lacks versatility. Kutloano on the other hand, used it as it is a very robust material to wok with. His conceptual garments required a structured base (which behaves like tulle - which he's not a fan of) upon which his avant garde pieces can be "assembled".
The poor material choice, in this case, shows a great understanding of material choice which he needs to exploit more of as I strongly believe is his forte (refer to this for another review of his collection)
Overall - the details were overshadowed by his material choice but a conceptually strong collection!