Joburg woes fashion gurus
ALEXANDRA - Glitz and glamour is the city from thursday to Saturday for the Mercedes Benz Fashion Week Johannesburg taking place at Melrose Arch.
The city is in glitz and glamour from 5 to 7 March for the Mercedes Benz Fashion Week Johannesburg taking place at Melrose Arch.
The event, a partnership of the City and Africa Fashion International (AFI), exhibits the latest Autumn-Winter 2015 collections. Heavyweight designers including Ruald Rheeder, Stefania Morland, Suzaan Heyns, Marianne Fassler, Fabiani, Khosi Nkosi, Tart, Augustine, KL Tsotetsi and Samantha Constable are expected to attract the world’s fashionistas with their clothing products.
Joburg Tourism’s Laura Vercueil said the City participates in this event to position itself as the continent’s leading hub for the fashion and design industries. “It is an opportunity to showcase the best regional design talent and provide access to global markets and decision-makers.”
She said the clothing and textile industry was integral to the nation’s economic growth and development and is a job creator with millions of rands invested in modernising the industry to make it more efficient to compete in global markets and to support innovation and young talent.
The event is expected to attract fashion media like Vogue Italia, Glamour France, Time Magazine, L’Officiel India Magazine, New African Women and BBC TV.
Vercueil also said with its attractiveness to both domestic and international visitors, the City will get spin-off benefits from international tourists and decision-makers shopping, tasting local food and enjoying the entertainment and leisure activities.
Sizwe Nzimande of AFI said the event would boast the designers’ commercial viability, incubate young talent to be successful, sustainable designers and entrepreneurs and also, celebrate local designers as trendsetters. This he said in reference to Khothatso Tsotetsi, who will showcase his first independent collection under his brand Tsotetsi KL and also, Tzvi Karp, who was recognised as one of the most influential young designers in 2013.
Other new young generation designers featured at the event are Jess Sutherland, Eleni Lebrou and Rich Mnisi.
Details: Laura Vercueil; Joburg Tourism 011 214 0700, laurav@joburgtourism.com
