A peek behind the seams of fashion icon Marianne Fassler's new collection

Last week Marianne Fassler launched her latest collection ahead of AFI's Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week Cape Town, which is currently on in Camps Bay.

Instead of participating in the AFI shows as she's done for the last few years, Fassler and her team decided to present their own show at her Leopard Frock showroom in Johannesburg to celebrate her 41st year in the fashion business.

Fassler is also in the process of completing her archives. The archival space will be launched in conjunction with the opening of the Zeitz Museum of Contemporary Art Africa, which will honour Fassler and three other designers.

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The show took place in the newly renovated space that will house her archives, where she will consult with clients and where she will have small, curated exhibitions, the first of which will feature her leopard-print collection from the 1980s and 1990s.

Fassler's creative director, Lezanne Viviers told us more.

The show was like tiny notes of your history?

Yes, Fassler has portfolios of every year she's worked, including every newspaper snippet. We designed the space specifically to fit the portfolios. It's also a space for students to do research.

Your own little Met Gala?

The archives inform the winter fashion show and the summer fashion show for the launch in September. It's about what defines the Fassler brand and the Fassler woman. Last night was a celebration of that.

The theme for the show?

Craft, with the hashtag #CraftIsStillTheNewLuxury. Everything is hand-crafted - hand-beaded, hand-stitched and tacked, hand-printed, hand-drawn and hand-cut. We also shot a live look book. The models were photographed and streamed live onto the screens downstairs.

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Who is the Marianne Fassler woman?

She's unpretentious and likes comfort but also likes power dressing. She's not scared of colour or print. She appreciates the skills involved in making clothes. She's confident, independent and uses clothes to make an impression. She loves art, fun and play. We see ourselves as an heirloom brand.

You want to inherit your mother's Fassler dress from the 70s or the 80s because it's still relevant and it's still beautiful. Marianne's grandchildren, her daughters and her 94-year-old mother all wear the brand. It's magical. We also creatively interpret and alter our designs to fit specific people at no extra cost.

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Tell us more about the show

Scene one is leopard print - we had our own skins made from leopard fabric to celebrate leopard print which is a big part of the brand. The rest of the show is about disrupting prints. A leopard never changes its "spots", so we did a scene in polka dots that we've deconstructed. We've also done Masai and hand-woven textiles and formal wear.

How is all of this different?

It's a reinterpretation of what we've always done, except using print on steroids. We played with polka dots and circles and then disrupted them. We got excited about the kimono and decided to reinvent it, mixing it with the kaftan shape. We also did silk, luxury orange overalls.

Final words?

This collection is about reinterpreting and revisiting all of Marianne's iconic work in a way that feels current. There's real love put into the clothes - that's the most important thing we want to show people.

• This article was originally published in The Times.