Fashion Week for the uninitiated

06 November 2014 - 10:33 By Yolisa Mkele
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Once a year Africa’s brightest and most glamorous coalesce around a suitably fancy venue to watch human clothing racks march up and down a runway for Mercedes Benz Africa Fashion Week (MBFW).

The event is arguably one of the biggest and shiniest platforms for designers, bloggers, buyers and anyone else trying to make a name for themselves in the industry to be seen, heard and side eyed. Consequently attending MBFW for the first time can be an intimidating experience, especially when one is dressed like an underpaid bike courier and knows only slightly more about fashion than the man who invented Crocs. This year the continent’s fashion lovers chose to gather at Melrose Arch in Johannesburg for MBFW and in so allowed me to get my first experience of a major fashion event. This is what I learnt.

Make an Effort:

Arriving at a major fashion event dressed in the nearest pair of clothes on your bedroom floor is like waltzing into the annual general meeting of a flamboyant pack of wolves in a sheep costume and hoping they have eaten already. What you wear is almost irrelevant so long as it seems like you tried. MBFW’s attendees were dressed in a wide variety of things from clashing prints to cocktail dresses to knee length socks that may or may not have belonged to Eugene Terre'blanche.

Lie:

MBFW is essentially a giant networking seminar with some runway themed entertainment and as such schmoozing is inevitable. Walking up to people and telling them how much you love their work is a good way to develop a champagne lubricated friendship that lasts as long as your drink.

Charge your phone beforehand:

Between googling the names of the many designers you don’t know, taking photos, posting said photos on Instagram and tweeting, your phone will most likely be working harder than a one legged coal miner. Should your battery die during proceedings your hard won fashion credibility will come into question when all your friends tell you “A picture or it didn’t happen”.

Fashion is art:

Fashion shows are not just excuses for tall skinny women to play dress up. They are art exhibitions in which the art work walks up and down trying desperately not to trip. The only difference between a run way and a museum is that randomly touching some of the artwork on a runway is likely to viewed as a sexual offence.

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