Sway |

As expected there have been some big changes at Cape Town Fashion Week this year. This is Deon Redman’s first outing as Creative Director of the event and his influence is very clearly seen in the “it’s all about the clothes” approach. Virgin Mobile have done a nice job of the branding. I think some brands don’t quite get how to do fashion sponsorships and plaster product messages everywhere, Virgin Mobile don’t fall into this trap and have produced some great imagery (featuring Black Coffee) that fits the event nicely.

The press room as well as looking much more stylish than the past also has 3 booths for designers that have just shown collections to let the media and buyers have a much closer look at the work (and chat). This is splendidly useful and I hope more designers make the most of this. As there had been no shows to start with the booths were occupied by some of the designers from previous events. I had a brief chat to the very friendly Emma from Pink Ant whose label was one of the highlights for many from Joburg Fashion Week – the gist of it was that the success of their collection in Joburg had really raised the profile of the label and now they have to concentrate on making enough of it…

Another thing worth mentioning is that most of the designers had taken the time to do provide proper information for buyers and media on the collections with a look by look guide to their collections provided – please keep this up everyone its the right thing to do.

The atmosphere was a bit mellower than usual, but in a good less frenzied way. Starting the event with young Ready To Wear designers made the day a bit more low key than when Cape Town Fashion Week was dominated by party frock designers. The designers were pretty representative of the type of clothes Capetonians actually buy in Cape Town every day although maybe not everything was right for a fashion week. Lalesso and Doreen Southwood (pics below) probably produced the stand out collections. I also like Sway (pics above) although the work was pretty similar to the graphic approach of Maya Prass so I kind of felt i’d seen this before.

Sway you’ll notice were on the CTFW line-up I just posted. It’s all about the prints for these guys as the garments are all pretty simple. There is a subtle African vibe about alot of their work without hitting us over the head with it – although possibly skitting over the wrong side of the twee line at times.

You can find them at these fine stores: