Nthatuoa Koeshe
THE lucky designer who has been invited to showcase his/her designs at the Paris Fashion Week (PFW) Autumn Winter 19 scheduled to run from the 27th of next month to the 6th of March 2019 will be revealed this Friday at Café What.
The event will also double as the premiere of the debut Fashion Film and Exhibition.
This follows the Lesotho Fashion Week which took place at Thaba Bosiu Cultural Village in November 2018 where the yet to be revealed designer took part along with a host of others.
The film, is a profile the designer who will travel to Paris next month and was shot and directed by art production house The Era. It was edited by Nkopane Mojakisane.
The Era’s art director and fashion photographer, Sobukwe Mapefane, said they shot the film at two locations namely the Maseru bus station and at Leribe Khanyane where chosen designers who will be showcasing in Paris grew up. He said the film tells a story about the designer’s upbringing, her passion for the craft while also showcasing some of her best designs.
He said the choice of shooting locations was influenced by the need to capture the Basotho influenced designs in the film.
“We interviewed the designer about life and the journey in the fashion industry and also had models showcase some of her designs,” Mapefane said.
He said at the event, there will also be a special guest appearance by George Malelu, Lesotho-born, South Africa-based fashion designer famous for designing Beyoncé’s costume wore for her closing performance at the 2018 Global Citizen Festival. Malelu is expected to share his experiences at the event.
“His is a story of a young Mosotho fashion designer trying to make it in the industry, facing many challenges along the way but instead of giving up, he perseveres and finally makes his mark,” Mapefane said.
Mapefane said there will also be a fashion exhibition which will entail a simple interpretation of black beauty as opposed to the world’s depiction of “people of colour” as inferior races who are both ugly and insignificant.
“The aim of the exhibition is to change this ideology using balloons, which through ageing, loose value and significance,” he said adding that the exhibition will use colours balloons to represent the different races while demonstrating how beautiful the human race is when it functions in unison.
He said the exhibition recreates a new perspective of beauty, focusing specifically on the people of colour, while taking a minimalistic route as a guideline to almost conceal the semantics of the message in simplicity.
Founder of the Lesotho Fashion Week, Mahali Granier, told the Weekender that the primary objective of the festival was to propel African designers onto the world stage. She said this will also help the designers to become commercially sustainable.
“Six designers showcased their Autumn Winter 19 collection. Their designer package included the possibility of having one designer showcase at the Paris Fashion Week,” Granier said.
She said following the designer’s showcase at Lesotho Fashion Week, the designer’s event footage which included look books, catwalk photographs as well as video, were sent to Nathanaëlle Hottois, who is the executive director at Paris Fashion Week Studio Inc.
Hottois reviewed the footage and selected one designer whose collection was deemed to be best suitable for the European market.
