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JOHANNESBURG – Struggling but deserving designers will get a chance to show workinspired by the creativity and history of South Africa's mostfamous township in Soweto's first fashion week opening Thursday. The township on Johannesburg's southwestern edge was the naturalplace for a show for new designers, said 23-year-old entrepreneurand Soweto Fashion Week organizer Stephen Manzini. "You walk around Soweto, you see creativity everywhere," Manzinisaid. Manzini didn't ask designers to show extensive collections orcharge them take part, unlike the country's more establishedfashion weeks. Fashion blogger Mahlatse James says this gives achance to designers who have not yet made a name to have a chanceto show their work to boutique owners and potential investors. "Creatives from Soweto do need their own platform," James said. "Ifthe other fashion platforms cannot afford them that, they have tocreate their own." Manzini acknowledges Soweto Fashion Week is an ambitious title forhis three-day showcase of 16 designers. Rehearsals were held in theparking lot and garden of a modest apartment borrowed from a tailorfriend, in a northern Johannesburg neighborhood some designersfound difficult to reach by taxi van, the main form of cheap masstransportation in South Africa. "We refused to be stopped because we don't have funding," saidManzini, who raised 60,000 rand (about $7,500) from churches,business people and other sponsors for the event. His mother, anurse, tapped her contacts and acted as chairwoman of the event,and is someone off whom he could bounce ideas, Manzini said. Manzini is confident that in coming years, the event will grow to afull week and give many more designers an opportunity. He hopes tostart his own business distributing designs that will first takethe catwalk this week. Soweto has long been known for its quirky sense of style, withdesigners splashing bright colors and urban sensibilities oneverything from the latest silhouettes on European runways toreworkings of the dapper suits Nelson Mandela wore when he lived inthe township in the 1940s. The older Mandela is best known for hisrelaxed but colorful shirts. But as a younger man, the son of aroyal family was a political celebrity in Soweto, and dressed thepart. "The style that Nelson Mandela rocked in his day," and other looksfrom the 1940s and 1950s are popular among Soweto designers, saidfashion writer James, who himself sports a shaved part in his hair,like Mandela had as a young man. James, dressed on the day he was interviewed in a purple tartan bowtie and eye-popping blue shoes, also favors the bright colors andnerdy yet cool skinny silhouettes popularized by the Smarteez, adesign collective from Soweto that has drawn internationalattention. The designers in Manzini's shows aren't as recognizable asSmarteez. But the strikingly modern Soweto Hotel, one of Manzini'ssponsors, has given them a classy stage with an evocative history.The hotel where the shows will be staged sits on the square where,in 1955, South Africans of all races gathered to adopt the FreedomCharter, which proclaims: "South Africa belongs to all who live init, black and white." Freedom Square is now a national monument. For 29-year-old designer Tebogo Lehlabi, Soweto is "liberation.It's freedom." Lehlabi has never before participated in a fashion week. She saidshe had not been confident enough in the past to seek such ashowcase, but now hopes that boutique owners will see her designsin Soweto and seek her out. "It's a great opportunity. It's a long time coming. There's a lotof talent that's going on in the townships," said Lehlabi, whocomes from another Johannesburg township, Alexandra. "Soweto is coming along, it's coming into its own" along with therest of South Africa, Lehlabi said. "We're an emerging identity.So, anything goes. It's a young and fresh identity." She expresses her own identity in recycled materials and bits andpieces she finds at supermarkets and hardware stores. She dyes herclothing to washed out blues and grays that she says suggestJohannesburg's smog and "that bleached look that you sometimes getjust before it rains." Her collection for the Soweto Fashion Show includes sleevelessblouses made from cloth her local supermarkets sells for rags. It'sa soft cotton that dyes beautifully, Lehlabi said. She takes the brightly checked vinyl bags impoverished travelersload onto buses and trains across Africa, and cuts them into piecesto use as decorative trim. Other embellishments are hand-woven fromhardware store rope. "I'm inspired by the working class. Because I am working class,"she said. Each piece is painstakingly handmade. But "it's very street. It's street couture," Lehlabi said. Lehlabi turns subtlety and thrift into elegance. CollenMonnakgotla, 32, another designer, represents the other extreme oftownship ingenuity. He dresses men in bright blocks of color, andhis fabrics range from denim to Lycra. Monnakgotla said he brings "something ghetto, something funky" toSoweto Fashion Week. We are high quality suppliers, our products such as China Portable Document Scanner , Electronic Reading Pen for oversee buyer. To know more, please visits High Speed Document Scanner.
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