FASHION WEEK: The breast in show

06 November 2014 - 10:10 By Staff reporters
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An exposed female breast is usually considered taboo. Ask Rihanna and Janet Jackson, who "bared" the brunt of negative media for exposing theirs. But, truth is, a little scandal keeps the fashion industry buzzing.

REA KHOABANE

An exposed female breast is usually considered taboo. Ask Rihanna and Janet Jackson, who "bared" the brunt of negative media for exposing theirs. But, truth is, a little scandal keeps the fashion industry buzzing.

Some of Africa's best fashion designers showed their spring/summer 2015 collections last week at the Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week Africa, and one of them sent his models down the catwalk half naked.

African prints were an obvious choice, and many designers, including David Tlale and Marianne Fassler, built their collections around them, but I wasn't expecting to see so many nipples, primarily as this kind of nudity is linked to negative stereotypes about African women.

But haute couture designer Spero Villioti didn't care. He brought sexy back and had some models strip off their gowns, while others wore see-through dresses that showed their feminine bits.

Villioti's collection was influenced by Hollywood glamour from the 1920s to the 1970s.

Born in Italy, Villioti immigrated to South Africa in 1986.

He says the collection is vintage-inspired with a modern twist. The 42 garments on the runway included two wedding dresses and one navy blue long fine lace dress with bugle beads and more than 2000 large peacock-coloured crystals. It took the designer eight months to finish.

Villioti has dressed international models Naomi Campbell and Tyra Banks, and he believes African women are the sexiest and most beautiful women in the world, and should also wear shiny shimmering garments instead of only African prints.

''The collection is a tribute to a powerful, feminine and sexy African Princess," he says.

ANDREA NAGEL

I'll say it unapologetically. I can't get enough of African prints. I don't care if they appear on every one of the more than 100 shows we're required to attend a year, thanks to the competing brands of Africa Fashion International and South African Fashion Week. I love the bright, irreverent, playful clash of colour and pattern.

Speaking of irreverence, doyenne of the South African fashion scene Marianne Fassler has it in spades. She called her show ''Same Same, But Different" at this year's Fashion Week Africa, referencing the style she's become known for over her decades of design on the local fashion landscape.

Onto the ramp came models wearing kaleidoscopic colours on jumpsuits, skirts, shirts and pants in her signature animal print mixed with interesting turquoise and bronze camo print, florals and delicate lace with some fine embroidery. The finer details were all in place too - funky platform sandals, croc-shaped animal skin shoes, curio-style necklaces and woven totes.

For the last third of her show, a grungy, slowed-down version of the Amy Winehouse song Back to Black played while the models walked the ramp in layered black clothing. It's just like Fassler to have something to say about the load-shedding we're currently experiencing. Last season she sent models out in jumpsuits, EFF style.

YOLISA MKELE

Just before Mozambican designer Taibo Bacar's ''A Luta Continua" began , a blogger was expounding his thesis on what makes good fashion. In short, he argued that designers use clothes as the medium for their message.

Watching Bacar's ''A Luta Continua" was less a fashion show than a production that spoke of struggle and triumph. The music blended the beauty of rural Mozambican fireside singing and the gravitas of romantic era German classical music. The collection vacillated between burgundy dresses fit for a warrior queen to shimmering evening dresses that looked as if they had been woven from gold dust. Vive la revolution.

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