Art and Fashion come together at SA Fashion Week

15 Sep '10

4 min read

In a first for the South African fashion industry, South Africa's premier fashion platform, SA Fashion Week (SAFW) will this year be exploring the contemporary relationship between fashion, art and other creative disciplines in its Winter 2011 Designer Collections.

The SA Fashion Week Winter 2011 Designer Collections will take place from 29th September – 2nd October 2010 as part of a unique collaboration with Arts on Main, Johannesburg's freshest hub for the creative industries in the innovative Maboneng Precinct.

As part of a four-day creative partnership with some of the country's foremost artists and sculptors, 24 of SA's top fashion designers will be showcasing their Winter 2011 collections in 12 runway shows. In addition, this year's event will also include seven designers who will be showing under the exciting new Malva concept store umbrella as well as the much anticipated annual Elle New Talent Show.

Comments SAFW Director Lucilla Booyzen, “The harsh economic realities of the past two years, have introduced a mood of social sobriety. This has compelled designers to return to their creative roots to deliver something that is truly remarkable with intrinsic design integrity. Hence the conversation with art becomes so important and that is what we have chosen to highlight through this year's event.”

This year, as part of a creative dialogue between fashion and the other creative disciplines, key industry opinion leaders, media and select clients will view the first glimpse of what's in store for Winter 2011 amongst the creative installations of the likes of well-known artists Barend De Wet, Mbongeni Buthelezi, Jill Tappler and Madagascan-born, Paris-based Joël Andrioanomiarosia hosted at various galleries and creative spaces including, amongst others the Sieppel Gallery, Nitrox ArtX ART SPACE and The Goodman Gallery Project Space. Fashion shows guests will also be treated to a host of interesting events including ambient projections, light activations, lace-making workshops and pop-up theatres.

Designers who will show their collections include amongst others, Amanda Laird Cherry, Ephymol, Colleen Eitzen, Christopher Strong, Mantsho, Black Coffee, Loxion Kulca By Ole Ledimo, Vesselina Pentcheva, Terrence Bray, Lebo Mash, Nabeela, Sibu Msimang, Karen Monk Klijnstra, Gert Johan Coetzee, Clive Rundle, Thunderstorm and Rubicon.

The Seipple Gallery – is curating a cross-disciplinary range of works in their space exploring the cross-over between fashion and art. The gallery will host an installation work by fashion design studio Black Coffee along with abstract works by artist Mbongeni Buthelezi as well as sculpture pieces by Cape Town based artist Jill Tappler.

Nirox Art Space – This gallery will host works by South African artist Barend De Wet.

Barend De Wet will be exploring his new sculptural work in the Nirox gallery space as well as interventions in collaboration with Fashion designer David West that erase the boundary between fashion and art throughout the ARTS ON MAIN site.