NEWSFLASH…..South Africa
11-08-2009
Today confirmation has come through that Fashion Enter and FashionCapital along with leading etailer asos.com will be flown out to South Africa in September during SA Fashion Week with a view to selecting SA fashion designers to break into the UK market. This will also be linked to The Workshop in Haringey and Haringey Council.
The relationship with South Africa began in 2007 through a trade mission with Croydon Buisness. Fashion Enter made some fantastic leads resulting in a reciprocal visit of South African delegates, including Masana Chikeka, Deputy Director of the Department of Arts and Culture, to London to review the UK fashion industry.
Through meeting Masana we learnt about the Fashion Fusion project. Launched in 2006, SA Fashion Week with the Department of Arts & Culture initiated a groundbreaking exchange programme between leading fashion designers and traditional crafters. The aim was to reinforce a unique design aesthetic that would excite local consumers and generate international interest in South African fashion. Equally the vision was to provide urban designers with the opportunity to draw inspiration from their wider environment while boosting the revenue potential of the outlying crafting community.
To date, this initiative, which actively promotes collaboration between rural crafters and designers, has established a national network of collaborative groups in all nine provinces and has empowered nine hundred crafters and assisted forty designers to develop collections.
On 15th September Fashion Enter, FashionCapital and asos.com will be visiting South Africa during Sanlam SA Fashion Week. FashionCapital will be reporting live each day whilst Fashion Enter and asos.com review SA fashion designers and visit the townships to review the beading work of the Fashion Fusion project.
This is a very exciting initiative which will provide awareness and develop international relationships within the fashion industry. A huge thank you to Masana Chikeka without whom this would not have been made possible.
Watch this space!
