Youth encouraged to explore their creativity

CREATIVES have welcomed the Durban inner-city regeneration programme and said it’s about time they start utilising the city to its full capacity.

Andile Cele, affectionately known as ‘ScotchisDope' said the programme will present a lot of opportunities for the youth to showcase their talents and ideas and that there is plenty of potential to restore the Durban CBD to its former glory. Cele is a self-taught, multi-medium artist who has previously worked in the fashion industry, in both Africa and Europe.

“We have a responsibility to add value and grow these spaces. By doing that we lay the foundation for the next generation. It always starts with the creative art crowd. They are the source of regeneration, so right now they are embracing the city, more and more of them are living, working and partying in the city and that for me is culture and community. The trick is to keep the momentum going and make the community bigger. The internet has also played a massive role in giving the youth a voice. They are so brave and they believe in their dreams, also the people that were ahead are continuing to succeed as creatives boost their morale,” Cele said.

Late last year Cele opened his conceptual lifestyle department store in Durban at the Ambassador House, Rivertown. The first project was launched in Johannesburg in 2009. He also showcased his work at the South African Fashion Week in 2015 with successful results, as he opted to use real street fashion influencers, rather than models. The models used included a group of his peers and iconic individuals who all come from the ever-changing street fashion scene.

“Our company philosophy is to create well designed original products, and that can be clothes, art, furniture, spaces, events etc. We are proud to be African and we are proud of our heritage and what we want is to firstly show the people around us that there are creative people, they do cool stuff and they do it well. But eventually we want to share this with the world. DOPEstore is the vehicle that we feel we can do this with. Fashion is a basic need in life as you will always need clothes. Where it becomes a bit tricky is what your message is as a fashion brand, what your values are and what the story you are telling the consumer is. The youth are always looking at what speaks to them and what they feel a part of. You have to let them have a voice, so it is very important for us to own our ideas and businesses, as this gives us control of what we do as young Black kids,” he said.

“The manufacturing needs to change. There needs to be huge investment in technology for manufacturing machinery as this will help with costs and the quality of our products. Young people must believe in themselves and chase their dreams, be persistent and never give up on what they believe in. At the same time, they also need to put in the hard work that goes with being successful,” added Cele.

The creative economy, which Cele's business forms part of, contributes over a billion Rand to the South African GDP and more than 562 000 jobs are created by this industry which is also 50 per cent black – owned. The Arts and Culture department said the contribution is driven primarily by the design and creative services, cultural and natural heritage as well as information, books and press clusters.