Established South African fashion-world heavy-weights including Marianne Fassler, Errol Arendz, Stoned Cherrie and David Tlale will show alongside global talents like Deola Sagoe (fresh from New York Fashion Week) and current celeb-favourite Laquan Smith.

Xuly Bët, the Paris-based go-to label for many celebrities, including Grace Jones, Lauryn Hill and Neneh Cherry, will be opening this years’ Africa Fashion Week. The award-winning label recently made global headlines with the ‘Obama’ dress at New York Fashion Week.

Marianne Fassler, who has not shown for two years, will be showcasing a collection entitled Global Gathering. The collection, a multi-layered extravaganza will focus on the idea of beginning: Africa as the birthplace of mankind and children as the original designers – her show will open with a small capsule collection designed under her direction by two children Adam (7) and Sibella (9), before continuing on a journey that pays homage to Africa’s polyglot of nations.

Joining her on the schedule is New Yorker-based label Mataano. The soft, feminine line is designed by the Somali sisters Ayaan and Idyl Mohallim who have been likened to the Olsen twins of Africa and have featured on CNN and Oprah.

Other designers traveling from the US include Laquan Smith, the current favourite of Rhianna (he designed the gold dress for her Rudeboy video) and Lady Gaga.

Mimi Plange, who has worked with designer Rachel Roy and Patricia Field, the famed Sex and the City stylist, will be bringing her sophisticated, yet deeply romantic label Boudoir D’Huitres to Africa Fashion Week.

Bunmi Koko, a British-based label has been garnering UK press attention over the past year with her innovative, structured designs favoured by celebrities such as Mel B (who chose a Bunmi Koko couture dress for the 2010 Brit Awards), Alesha Dixon, Alex Curran, Sadie Frost and Kate Middleton will also be showcasing on African soil.

Local South African brand Stoned Cherrie will be marking their tenth anniversary with their Africa Fashion Week show – their Summer 2010 collection is a retrospective look at the label’s silhouettes throughout its history.

“Africa Fashion Week is providing a platform for shining stars from across the diaspora, the continent and the country,” says Dr. Precious Moloi-Motsepe, Chairperson of African Fashion International. “The world continues its love affair with all things African, African as a point of reference, not as a cliché and it’s very important we here in Africa continue to support that.”

Completing the line-up of designers at Africa Fashion Week 2010 are Sakina Msa, Ituen Basi (last year’s Africa Fashion Award winner for Innovative Designs), Soucha, Heni Este-Heijzen and Christie Brown (joint winners of last year’s Emerging Designer Award), Noir, Qumi Bespoke, Koketso Chiepe, Gloria Wavamunno and Abigail Betz, Thula Sindi, Carducci and Fabiani.

The four day event features more than 30 designers from Guinea Bissau, Nigeria, Uganda, Botswana, Ghana, Somali, Tunisia, French Commores, South Africa, Mozambique, the United States and the UK

Africa Fashion Weeks runs from June 30 – July 3 2010 at the Sandton Convention Centre

For more information, full show schedules and highlights from previous collections go to www.africanfashioninternational.com

Tickets available from Computicket from June 1.

The full list of designers is as follows

Founded in Johannesburg in 2010, is a new fashion concept to create a standard of well dressed citizens.
Classic looks for men and women, innovative silhouette with noble fabric.
The designs follow the craftsmanship of tailoring for some elegance in everyday.

People get up and get out but first they get dressed.
One day is important because it can´t be repeated.
The next day is the future and it can be today.
Today is a moment when we will do something.

noir is a Fashion Salon d´Automne under the creative direction of Roman Handt & Katrin Lewinsky.
The studio is located in Johannesburg and works with international material.

CONTACT:
noirtailors@gmail.com

STOCKISTS:
CO-OP www.co-opjoburg.com

He caught the attention of the fashion world with his streetwise creations made from recycled materials. He was recognised by and has been featured in French fact Vogue and Glamour magazine. His success is illustrated by the that his merchandise was chosen to be featured in all stores of the French Galeries Lafayette chain.

Xuly Bet was the designer who used the clothing tag externally as part of the overall effect in his clothing. Embraced as a street-savvy fashion designer, he is favored by many rap artists as well as such pop luminaries as INXS, Neneh Cherry, and Soul II Soul. Xuly Bet is one of a number of designers who exists side by side with the musical fraternity to propagate his fashion message. In common with that same school of fashion savants, his end-wearers are the ordinary working class.

Xuly bet continues in that vein, avoiding elitism, and resisting the temptation of becoming the fashion/merchandising stereotype – a fate which has marked the creative end of many financlially successful designers.

Typcial creations of Xuly Bet include a revealing dress made from tights fabric. He is reknowned for using such materials as well as items obtained from second-hand stores and bargain stores, and then creating something completely new from them.

+ 33 (0) 1 46 71 89 80
funkinfashion@gmail.com

Nkhensani holds a degree in Industrial Psychology and Sociology and is a gifted writer having written articles for O Magazine, Y-Mag, Going Up, amongst others. In 2005 she completed her final season as co-producer and co-host of popular SABC 1 talk show Mojo. Her career in television began as co-owner of a production company called Vicious Funk Productions, producing corporate videos and inserts for Options (SABC3).

She is a coveted speaker, having been invited as guest speaker at numerous events and conferences, including the internationally renowned Design Indaba. She recently addressed a crowd of the worlds leading entrepreneurs at a gala event in New York alongside the likes of Jerry Yang, the founder and chairman of Yahoo as well as Terry Bernstein CEO of Yahoo. She has also been invited to motivate post-graduate students at The Gordon Institute of Business Science (GIBS).

Having travelled throughout Africa in 1999 as the host and official spokesperson for M-Net’s Face of Africa, Nkhensani recognised that there was a gap in the market – the urban energy that exists on the continent was not being branded and packaged into authentic products. There was an opportunity to build an African brand that celebrated South Africa’s new sense of identity and explored in a creative way what it means to be an African in the 21st Century. She decided it was time to set up a new and now popular African urban fashion label, Stoned Cherrie.

Tel: + 27 (0) 11 402 0188
info@stonedcherrie.co.za

CONTACT:
stiaanlouw@yahoo.com
studio by appointment only:
+ 27 (0)21 4655499

STOCKISTS:

astore, Cape Town
The Street, Johannesburg
‘Cabinet’, Johannesburg

Soucha then went on venturing in the capital of entertainment in the Arab world and moved to Egypt. His capital was his talent and will to succeed; he successfully proved himself and gained the reputation of being creatively different than what was available in the market.

Today Soucha Fashion has achieved regional reputation and obtained numerous awards for talent and trend originality.
He continues his path of success and business growth.

CONTACT

Tel: +2 3 749-0872
Mobile: + 2 (0)10 191-3230 / 016 111-6561
Tito Fashion assistant cel: +2 010 584-4032
Fax: +2 3 749-0872
souchafashiondesigner@gmail.com ; soucha@soucha-hc.com
www.Soucha-hc.com

STOCKISTS:

106 –first floor, Nile city building, cairo, Egypt
316-3rd floor, grand hyatt, Cairo, egypt

Fashion is conceptual and functional, a complex visual communication influenced by cultural, political and economic associations. Her prêt-a-porter garments are “interactive” in that the original ideas behind them are open to the wearer’s interpretation and adaptation thus making fashion a vehicle of creative collaboration.

Tel. +351 925 247 696
scmuen@gmail.com
http://muendane.elementfx.com/

Her invention: «buried (or planted) fabric», an empirical technique that ages fabric in a natural way, through slow oxygenation, is by now well-known. However, Sakina M’sa’s imprint is not limited by this superb idea. She was influenced by the post-modernist theses of the philosopher, Jean Baudrillard.

Sakina M’sa’s production is distributed internationally and she has a myriad ideas on developing her brand in a very competitive environment, thanks to humorous and convivial marketing initiatives such as the M’as-tu vu («Did you see me») parties, similar to the old-fashioned Tupperware parties.

Since 1998, she moderates «Cultural Mediation» workshops in disenfranchised neighborhoods on the theme of clothing and identity. Workshops and design activities are interlinked, and Sakina M’sa created a design company to employ the workshop participants. Her own atypical background, cultural and social origins, and the meaning she intends to give her work, led her to think about the democratization of the fashion industry and on how to include those not born into the inner circle, and more importantly the “socially excluded,” so they can participate in the extraordinary adventure of manufacturing and presenting a collection. In 2001, she received the Saint Etienne Biennale Grand Prix, and in 2002 the Fondation de France prize. In 2007, she received the Grand Prix de la Création de la Ville de Paris (Grand Prize for Creativity from the City of Paris), and the “Fantastic Woman” prize, Femina version (Sunday supplement of the Journal du Dimanche, publisher: Hachette-Filipacchi).

She exhibited L’Etoffe des Héroines at the Petit Palais Museum; this exhibit enjoyed tremendous success. She also authored the book, Robes des Possibles (“Dresses of the Possible”) in honor of her heroines (the women of her workshop: Malika, Besra, Marta… as well as other women: Marianne Faithfull, Agnès Varda, Louise Bourgeois…), published by Filigranes in September 2007.

“Optimism Joy Collection” is the fall winter 09/10 !

CONTACT:
6 Rue des gardes 75018 Paris
0033 1 56 55 50 90 / 0033 6 86 16 19 94
commercial@sakinamsa.com
www.sakinamsa.com
STOCKISTS:
Première vision, trade show.

Ever the sharp dresser since his youth in London, CEO; Leslie Kofi Danso has always had a keen eye for top-end designer suits. Ask him and he will tell you that he owes much of his early knowledge of the textiles industry to his mother who was and still is one of the more renowned fabrics and wax print merchants in the bustling Makola Market in the Accra Metropolis over the last 40 years. He will also mention his late father Kofi Danso (Snr) whom he describes as his fashion icon and inspiration. Leslie Kofi Danso had a huge vision for the brand when he established it in June 2008 after he noticed that the contemporary African man had limited access to high quality custom made, African-designed men’s suits without the need to venture to Europe. His dedication to perfection means that he is directly involved in the design process from creation to finish for each piece branded with his purple label. The brand has been gaining increasing amounts of exposure through television coverage and magazine articles, more recently, show-casing part of the range during Ghana Fashion Week 2008. His vision interminably expands as with growing attention and interest, the brand is on course to penetrate the rest of the African continent and eventually the global market.

Clients who come to his showroom in Accra can expect to be measured and pinned, leaving with a suit perfectly tailored to fit their shape; the London Savile Row experience, right in the heart of Ghana. Currently, the range includes men’s suits, shirts and ties.

qUmi Bespoke is for the everyday man who is willing to go the extra mile for their image.

qUmi Bespoke…”be spoken of”…

CONTACT:
Ground Floor, 1st Ringway Estates, Kukuhill, Osu, Accra, Ghana

Mobile: (+233) 24 858 7132

kofi.l.danso@gmail.com
leslie@qumibespoke.com

www.qumibespoke.com (under construction)

STOCKISTS:

1. Showroom: Ground Floor, 1st Ringway Estates, Kukuhill, Osu, Accra, Ghana

2. 51 Harold Road, Chingford, London, E4 9ST, Mobile (+44) 7950 566 969

Experiencing the industry from the ground up, through careful study and practice, they gradually crafted their talent, weaving their varied cultural influences into each meticulously designed piece in their studio. In 2008, the Mohallim sisters took a bold step together, launching their brand, Mataano (translated as “twins” in Somali), and developing a platform from which to express their vision and bring forth their creations to the marketplace.

CONTACT:
Info@mataano.com
+ 1 718.399.2079

STOCKISTS:

ONLINE STORE AT : http://www.mataano.com/store
Stores:
MICHELLE NEW YORK
376 Atlantic Avenue
BROOKLYN, NY 11217
TRUE BOUTIQUE
278 Mott Street
New York, NY 10012-3479