David Tlale and Suzanna Heynes Summer 2009 Collection modelled by Jourdan Dunn
Anyone expecting resort wear from Cape Town's fashion crowd will be (mostly) disappointed for summer 09 with many of the standout collections being broody and dark. It hasn't been a terribly wonderful year for South Africa (power cuts, crappy economy, political corruption and Zimbabwe going loco to name a few of the downers) so maybe that explains the post-apocalyptic vibe.
For one or two of the designers though, the sun was still shining. Event openers LaLesso use traditional Kenyan fabrics to create chic beach wear - designed to be thrown into the suitcase for that trust fund fuelled trip to Bermuda. LaLesso are also worth mentioning for their concession at Topshop in Oxford Street (as far as I know the only South African based brand stocked there).
Fashion Week regular Craig Port was also too busy hanging out with the boys at the pool to get too gloomy about things. He launched his splendidly titled "10 Inches" swimwear range at the event (note you'll have had to spent all winter buffing up in the gym to wear it).
On the darker side Stiaan Louw's tightly-styled menswear made its fashion week debut to a soundtrack of No Wave classics. Mostly in strict black and white, with bondage inspired accessories, the collection would be perfect for your more sartorially aware, post-apocalypse street gang. Stiaan is a favourite of Cape Town's cooler club kids who also seem to be reacting against a year of new rave colour with a more darkly psychedelic approach.
More mysterious than moody perhaps, Maya Prass, known for her adept approach to colours and prints offered a collection inspired by Balkan gypsies in muted colours that also used plenty of monochromes.
If anything the handful of visiting Joburg based designers went even darker in mood. Black Coffee, considered by many to be one of SA's most progressive labels, presented a capsule collection that mixed superb draping, bondage like ribbons and insectoid frocks – again in muted colours and monochrome. Suzanne Heynes, on the same night, presented a collection dominated by black microdresses mixing influences from vintage underwear, dominatrix leather gear and equestrian S&M with the result feeling like a fairy tale on bad acid.
And then there was David Tlale who presented a show stopper that can only be described as vamparic, with models hands dripping with red glitter, fierce blacks and metallics and a fiendish attention to detail. David is still a relatively new name on the South African fashion scene, but is proving himself as a master of drama. You may need an excorcist to get out of one of his frocks though.
Now only in its sixth year, Virgin Mobile Cape Town Fashion Week, is well passed afro-chic clichés and colonial evening frocks, and is becoming a platform for a younger group of more visionary designers.
