September in the southern hemisphere: how do we archive our fashion?

High level fashion stakeholders have said that September is the January of the fashion world, with September beginning the start of the Fall/Winter season in the fashion calendar. The Fall/Winter season in particular is exciting and bears weight for fashion forecasting because it’s when predictions for the next fashion year start to pop up.

Of course, there are politics of said calendar, because September would indicate the exact opposite for those of us in the Southern hemisphere. While September in the North might indicate the end of summer and a return to more routine, in a Southern context, it points to fun, more summery times ahead.

Photograph by Inez and Vinoodh

It was Vogue’s The September Issue documentary that put that specific American yearly issue on the map, and had a subsequent ripple effect on the fashion media industry at large. That was in 2009. Since then, we know American Vogue in particular has come under much fire for having lost its creative edge, with many attributing it to the unceasing grasp fashion mogul Anna Wintour has on the publication. In addition to this, it was just earlier this year that British Vogue came under fire for its own questionable cover and creative direction. So Vogue definitely doesn’t have the same unquestioned, almost monopolising cultural grip on the fashion industry as it did in the past.

But there’s still something to be said about the September issue.

Photograph by Jamal Nxedlana

It’s the biggest moment for the fashion media and looking through the archives of September issues of Vogues and other fashion magazines of America, one would be able to understand the fluid lexicon of fashion. One would get an insight into what images fashion houses were creating and the cultural references that inspired the runway for that year and the next to come. One would get a slice of and view of a fundamental part of any country’s culture.

Bringing it back home, a September issue for South Africa could introduce us to much of the new talent presented to us through platforms like SAFW and Design Inbada. Much of these phenomenal talents, with a hunger and drive to do amazing things, can become easily lost in the unending rapids of social media. As all the images pop up with the click of a button and lost by the refresh of a simple finger’s drag, the living culture of South African fashion is lost to the floods. One can’t help but yearn for a place specifically to encapsulate and archive this slice, this moment in the culture.

Photograph by Kristin-Lee Moolman

While South Africa or even Africa doesn’t necessarily need a Vogue, fashion does need media. The South African mediascape definitely has a number of publications that boast sections dedicated to fashion – like this very website. Some even take it very seriously, with GQ South Africa recently having their fashion awards! And those kinds of events help us hold close the artists, stylists, designers, pattern makers and other industry professionals who are sculpting the images of the South.

But we need more. It is rare that a fashion publication today is led so primarily by the greater world of beauty and fashion, and everything else falls into small sections of content. It’s a shame that if one was to go to ELLE South Africa’s Instagram page, amongst the most recent posts would be a post announcing the death of Karl Lagerfeld. That was 19 February 2019 – can we even begin to count the amount of life changing events that happened in the world since then? Can we begin to trace back the way in which the South African fashion industry has, in turn, responded to those?

This is the crisis we’re faced with. It’s been a longstanding conversation, with the gallery space in South Africa beginning to make some strides. But we know that not everyone can access these spaces, for a number of reasons.

Our saviour isn’t Vogue. We don’t need a saviour. But we need, if not for those of us living through the moment, to hold onto what we have. In line with the ethos of a month dedicated to heritage, I hope someone, in 50 Septembers from now, can follow the thread that might take them to the garments of 2022 and feel a closeness to the culture.