Africa Fashion Week Previews

This is the statuette that the designers will receive at the AFI Awards ceremony on Monday, the 5th of July, depending on how they impressed the audience and judges. It's a weighty fireplace mantle piece which is highly sought after - and good luck to all the designers!!

I personally do not believe in such an award ceremony (although I'm crossing my fingers I get invited) because it compares designers who are coming from different backgrounds, ideas and influences - how do you, or rather, can you compare apples and bananas? or are aesthetics and execution all that matter?

Had the designers been told to keep to a certain theme, or source inspiration from 1 common pool, then perhaps liberty on judging can be granted. As it stands though - it ridicules those who have not (or will not) received anything (but are ironically clearing shelves from their stores).

David Tlale is causing a stir, be it of annoyance or of excitement, after releasing invitations that say that his show will start at midnight on Wednesday the 30th of June (at the Sandton Convention Centre). Murmurs suggest it's because the entire showroom has to be "redone" for his show - yes, we should expect another production like no other. But a 3 hour gap? I am excited but mildly peeved off about this - but I know it will be worth the wait, I think, I hope!

I had a quick chat with him about his upcoming collection which was inspired by the African Emperor Butterfly - a majestic butterfly which is uniquely South African. But my quick chat was to establish why butterflies (an insect synonymous with sunny days and flowers - which makes sense for a spring summer collection, which it is) is being shown at midnight. Other than logistics problems - why is David comfortable showing this collection with strong diurnal influences at midnight:

He believes things are beautiful at midnight (I am guessing he's a bit of a Night Owl) and although it's ironic to juxtapose the two, it's something he felt he needed to do, to bring daylight beauty into the night and there is no better way of doing this than to present the wonders of an understated insect to dawn.

This sounds a little too complex, and frilly, for me to comprehend so I'll rather watch the show to make heads-from-tails of this.

He was also shown in one of the Saturday papers fitting Sonia Booth - "WAG" - so I guess there will be one or two soccer players/WAGS visiting Africa Fashion Week.

In keeping with the Soccer theme and to my delight, Jay-Jay Okocha (former Nigerian soccerplayer) will be taking onto the ramps.

I caught up with him before he went for his fitting and although his publicist did not want to mention which show we should expect, my hard-earned money is on Fabiani (they let it be known that Deon Redman was producing the show JayJay would feature in, Fabiani is known for presenting public figures on their ramps- and voila! that's my prediction) - more WAGs to attend? *nodding my head*

Fabiani show details: Thursday the 1st of July at 18h00 (Sandton Convention Centre)