A few months ago, I went clothes shopping on a rare day out. Despite complaining that there were huge holes in my wardrobe, I was unable to find anything that worked for me, within my budget, in all the many shops at the V&A Waterfront in Cape Town. I wriggled in and out of various items in the confined spaces of many changing rooms, but came away with only a pair of designer socks – sparkly, silver socks on a sale.

The disconnect between what I want to wear, what I have hanging in my cupboard to wear and what might be out there to buy to wear is frustrating. My forays into the world of fashion as a consumer are disheartening. The collapse of the rand hasn’t helped, as a I am magnetically drawn to Italian designs which seem to understand my shape, but not my pocket.

Matching - on my way to Johannesburg to film an African Fashion Story

However, in contrast, going through the back door into the behind-the-scenes world of African fashion as a journalist and producer has been hugely exciting. Admittedly, I am not really a follower of haute couture, but I have found myself reading fashion journalism over the last decades with increased interest because of what clothes say about people.

So I seized the opportunity to produce a piece featuring the South African design duo behind the Amen label, Brad Muttit and Abiah Mahlase, whom I had met in passing through a different story. And through them I came into contact with Dr Precious Moloi-Motsepe, the founder of African Fashion International, and the story unfolded like a flower.

There were many elements of Brad and Abiah’s approach I liked – they have generous and loving personalities; they were extremely accommodating, making themselves available throughout a tight shoot, despite their own looming deadline of the runway at AFI’s Fashion Week. But most of all I liked their sense of story-telling, and how they using the African street experience as a way to riff on trends and style. And through the lens of story-telling, their story was told.

Amen filming a fashion film for their runway collection “Salon”, October 2021

 Thanks to African Fashion International, cameraman Thomas Pretorius and I got to spend an evening filming backstage at a fashion show. Thomas captured some wonderful images. One of the best was a series of slow-motion shots of long silky dresses being steam-cleaned on the fly:  lowlight, steam, hands gentling unfurling long shimmering, undulating lines of cloth.

As the clock ticked down to showtime, the energy ramped up and sizzled like electricity. The build-up to the catwalk show was lengthy and increasingly charged. The actual show was swift and over in a few blinks of a mobile phone. DOP Thomas waited in the wings as the Amen models lined up to walk out. And then he ran out to the front to turn his lens on Brad and Abiah as they followed their collection to take an exultant bow before the applauding audience.  It was a sprint finish to a fashion marathon.

DOP Thomas filming the Amen models before they walk the cat walk at the AFI Fashion Week 2021

Each of the creatives in the piece draw on story-telling in different ways. Brad and Abiah are inspired by what they witness in the day-to-day bustle of the city in which they live, Jozi. They used a Braamfontein Hair Salon as the set for a small fashion film that ran as a backdrop when models walked their collection which they named Salon. Fast-track designer, Shamyra Moodley, mines her extended family to find jewels of inspiration. She sews memories and sensibilities into sustainable outfits – with Persian carpet pockets, deconstructed neck tie skirts, and a shocking pink suit cut out of a grandmother’s sari.

Shamyra Moodley fixing a hair accessory to a model moments before showtime at AFI Fashion Week in Johannesburg

Jewellery-maker Sifiso Khumalo wants to tell the story of the person who might wear the pieces he creates – something about them that he intuits as he did in the pair of earrings featured in the story. The earrings, called Ripple Effect, hold a human experience meshed into fine platinum and precious stones. Each designer demonstrates a heightened degree of emotional intelligence as they conceptualise and implement their designs which connect them to individual experiences and the African communities around them.

SIfiso Khumalo working with focus on a fine ring which the camera can see in beautiful detail.

Comment