In the North, September is a huge moment in the fashion calendar. It acts as a kind of fashion new year, with all brands releasing their Spring/Summer lines in advance for the year to come. For our local calendar, the Spring/Summer collections are released in April. For South Africa, a country which takes the full enjoyment of summer very seriously, South African Fashion Week (SAFW) is a huge platform.
Hosted once again by Mall of Africa, the Spring/Summer 2023 South African Fashion Week shows took place from April 20-23. Thankfully, all three days of shows were at full capacity! For those who couldn’t make it, or are unsure of where to start unpacking the 37 different brands who exhibited – we got you! We’ve provided a recap of this year’s shows, in all their highs and lows.
Fashion Constrained Within Formulae
As a starting point, it must be addressed. For such a culturally relevant, relatively long-standing practice, the means by which SAFW challenges fashion and runway culture leaves much to be desired. Perhaps it is in fact the age of the institution that makes it so. Old dogs and their aversion to new tricks. It’s exemplified by the way that pretty much every show followed the exact same formula, in the way in which the models would present the clothing. No individual flare, or element of performativity, to enrich the reading of the show.
It begins to read as all very samey. It doesn’t help that the local fashion industry is perpetually at odds with financing and infrastructure – that means when Mall of Africa partners with you and offers to host for the 3rd year in a row, you take it. But, when you can push through the very strict model coaching, and how that strips the clothes of their personality-shaping abilities, there’s lots to excite you!
The Eccentric Accessory
Take, for example, the accessories! Even brands who created much more toned-down collections didn’t shy away from these playful accents. It seems the agenda for this summer is dangly and colourful earrings. Silika took this to a higher level with a headpiece of horns, being very reminiscent of the powerful show put on by Masa Mara at Cape Town Fashion Week. Overall, handbags were relegated to the side, deemed as less important.
Except by one. The very deserving winner of the 2023 MR Price New Talent Search, Cyla Gonsolves, presented a collection which acted as a well-executed departure from their usual style. Enjoy the motion created by Ruffle-mania (another very present trend this season), the models carried with them, handbags, which looked like loofahs. The little puffs carried inside them the secret ingredient to the Gonsloves win: design, from a place of joy.
Clearly Printed Rules
In their media release, SAFW shared with audiences that the Talent Search entrants were “challenged to demonstrate their talent for print development”. Even beyond Talent Search entrants, prints were in no shortage! Juanie did this particularly well, by keeping within a strictly black-and-white colour palette across the collection (with the exception of bright blue dangly earrings) and allowing the prints to bring alive each outfit.
With other brands, the tendency to add every print would come on very strong, regardless of any aesthetic harmony. Other brands separated print and pattern by going very iconographic, with the use of high-quality printed photographs. In the case of Fuata Moyo, whose message for the show was “Love is the answer”, it had the effect of 20th-century political poster printmaking. In the case of REFUSE CLOTHINGS’ closing silk button-up, it was referential of a film you hadn’t seen.
Is Quiet Luxury Real? These Designers Won’t Make The Answer Easy For You
These last few months of 2023, following the sheer grey-ness of Paris Fashion Week (and its historic allusion to recession) have caused many to theorise around the idea of “quiet luxury”. To summate many arguments, and save you from the very likely classist “money talks, wealth whispers” advocates: the idea is it’s a trend of the very wealthy to wear luxury clothing which isn’t conspicuously expensive. Think of muted/neutral colours, small if at all visible logos, and unassuming silhouettes.
While social media has theorised about whether or not this is how the wealthy will disguise themselves amongst the masses in these uncertain economic times, the world of designers reflected in SAFW isn’t very visibly buying into these ideas. Some of the designers presented very muted, utilitarian collections, like RESEARCH UNIT (whose work could easily be in conversation with some part of Miuccia Prada’s mind). Then others, like the 2022 New Talent Search winner, MUNKUS, relied on fun colours and exaggerated A-Lines as they have in the past.
The key term here is: “like they have in the past”. This, amongst everything, is very likely the best thing showcased in SAFW. Designers are constantly in the work of visual articulation, which is unique to them. This contribution to the lexicon of fashion is valued; we need designers to bring themselves, and their cultures (see: GUGUBYGUGU) to the runway.
These designers have the difficult task of seeing comments in the thousands talking about quiet luxury as the next big thing, from people who might not have a very deep interest in fashion and its future. Through all of that pandemonium and all of that debate, these designers have a responsibility to work on themselves and develop their own paths. One can only hope, when the seasons lap over, and we find ourselves – very likely at Mall of Africa again, that the designers would’ve stuck true to themselves and shown a development of their craft.
