FULL HOUSE ON OPENING NIGHT OF THE SWAHILI FASHION WEEK
(Posted 05th December 2015)
The prized runway seats were crammed to capacity as were several rows of seats behind and at the back was even the standing room getting overcrowded as Mustafa Hassanali, Tanzania’s erstwhile Fashion guru, launched the eight edition of the Swahili Fashion week at the Seacliff Hotel in Dar es Salaam.
All eyes this weekend are once again on East Africa’s premier fashion event, which has found many copiers in the region but none has reached the magnetic pull nor seen the hype generated in mainstream and on social media like the #SFW2015 did.
When I coined the phrase ‘Fashion Tourism’ some years ago did a number of my readers react with the predictable ‘WHAT TOURISM’ question but by 2015 it is now evident that the region’s Fashionistas have set off a veritable trend, traveling from fashion show to fashion show, following their favourite designers and applauding then wildly when they come out on the runway to take a bow.
A Ugandan in fact travelled all the way from Kampala by bus to Dar es Salaam to see the collection presented by Sylvia Owori and told me: ‘It was too late to get a cheap airticket so the only option was to use the bus. I am a fan and that is what fans do. We don’t see too much of Sylvia these days in Uganda on the fashion scene so when she appears somewhere like here in Dar this is the best chance to check out what she has been up to’.
Sylvia was nominated together with four others as ‘Designer of the Year’ and fingers are crossed for the home girl to bring the trophy back with her to Kampala of course.
(Final touches, on stage and back stage and testing out the cameras and sound)
(Mustafa Hassanali, in the audience and after an exciting, rewarding but also exhausting opening night)
Two more nights await Tanzania’s fashionistas, the Saturday night show and then the closing act on Sunday when the awards will be announced of the 2015 edition of the www.swahilifashionweek.com.
For the opening night it was the expected explosion of colours, the uniquely East African mix of fabrics and materials and the ingenuity of Africa’s upcoming designers, different no doubt from the fancied runways in Milan, Paris, London or New York but befitting for Africa. The world of ‘Haute Couture’ may not yet take too much notice of African fashion events but it is after all here where models like Alek Wek, Ajak Deng, Betty Adewole, Rebecca Ayoko, Nadja Giramata and Ayuma Nasenyana have their roots.
It is here in Africa where design shops and designer names like Mille Collines, Mancini, Mago’, Taibo Bacar, Niku Singh, Kooroo, Jamil Walji, Fikirte Addis, Ally Rehmtulla, Shenu Hooda and of course Mustafa Hassanali sprang to prominence on our continent.
No doubt is African fashion becoming more and more fashionable in Africa these days, to a large part owed to events like the Swahili Fashion Week and similar shows across the region.
More and more social events see ladies wear classic African and also the latest modern African designs, bringing colour into the ball rooms which outshine the, in comparison, almost drab looking little black or red dresses, be they short or long, worn by others who lack the courage to be African in Africa.
Watch this space over the coming two days for more updates and pictorials, brought to you by the Swahili Fashion Week and Mustafa Hassanali.
