Every year, South Africans gather on the web or are glued to their TV screens to see who said or boycotted what at the state of the nation address. What also gets tongues wagging are the outfits worn on the glitzy red carpet on the night.
While all the calamity is done in favour of supporting local, that was not always the case. Something that Proudly SA’s chief marketing officer Happy Ngidi shared when speaking to TimesLIVE. Noticing that parliamentarians and their guests have the buying power and influence to push the message of buying and supporting local creators, it was she and her team who encouraged the notion that local is lekker on the red carpet. “When you make a purchasing decision for a locally manufactured product, it sustains the jobs we have,” said Ngidi.
As part of the fanfare that comes with the day, Ngidi sought to “redirect purchasing decisions from Diamond Walk to local designers”.
The initiative, which started four years ago, has seen some success, even with a rocky start where Ngidi and her team were faced with lukewarm support. This would encourage them to send President Cyril Ramaphosa a list of local designers to source from. And while he complied, some MPs are harder nuts to crack.
Seen at this year’s carpet event, the attendees have been able to either follow the mandate set by Proudly SA or fall flat and do the opposite, missing one integral feature that they keep missing every year: how crass the event can be.
While Proudly SA might have the best interests of the SA industry at heart, the gauche levels of fashion seen on the carpet best replicate the world of Suzanne Collins’ Hunger Games.
Set in a distant future, the series of books and movies follows different districts whose children must compete in a series of fatal battles where only one can come out the victor. And who is this performed for? The Capital, the main city where citizens are entertained by these “hunger games” they deem are made for the districts to repent.
Collins was inspired to pen the smash hit, mirroring gladiator games of ancient Greeks, but it also meant to capture how desensitised people were to real-life wars. So, to bring her world to life in cinema, The Capital is seen as a society of overdressed aristocrats who consume so much that they use emetics to keep stuffing themselves.
The costuming of The Capitals elite is eerily similar to what we see at Sona. Over-the-top and colourful gowns and sequined suits that are a polar opposite to the strife faced by the lacking communities. And with students protesting at the foot of parliament and demonstrations by water-deprived citizens, the red carpet event was tone-deaf. Especially with guests like Bernice Swarts, swathed in beads and bulbous pearls that mimic Edwardian royals. No different from the psychedelic parties hosted in Collins’ universe.
The fashion industry in South Africa may have contributed millions and billions from 2020 to last year’s GDP numbers but is the event of any service if it leaves a bitter taste in the mouths of the public that parliament must influence into buying? Not all designers have benefited from the showcase, while others have seen an uptick in support thanks to the outlandish requests made by parliamentarians. And while 2023 ushered in a year that called for demure dressing, it’s since been abandoned for gowns and flashy suits that separate the haves from the have-even-less.
The 2023 turn to sensible dressing introduced traditional wear, clothing that is notoriously bold with its silhouettes and flamboyant in its use of embellishments. Categorising some of these items as ostentatious can be a little unfair, and runs the risk of tribalist or racist sentiments due to some cultures and races being bolder than others. Especially when some MPs like Patricia de Lille opt for toned-down suits where the lapel celebrates one of the countries in the culture.
Another issue that persists at these events is that they rely on word of mouth. Vague mentions of seamstresses and designers who don’t attend and aren’t promoted by many of the MPs. This showcases the faux intentions behind promoting local fashion that seems to be a priority of Proudly SA, its guests and red carpet host. Gwede Mantashe shrugged off the idea of wearing local and opted for shopping at a retailer he wasn’t even certain was local or not. So the whole affair becomes a big excuse to let parliament have its own little Met Gala, where MPs and guests twirl in expensive sneakers, loafers and ball gowns.
In normalising its gaudy society, the Hunger Games’ Capital was able to brainwash society into believing just about anything that came out of its leaders. Today, while disgruntled, parched citizens take to the streets in protest, bigwigs like Swarts flaunt their wealth on red carpets, and even Panyaza Lesufi has a hard time understanding why we all can’t just take a chill pill in the lap of a luxurious hotel.
TimesLIVE
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