Creative Cape Town

To say that the Cape Town Fashion Council has style is no pun. It is about as cutting edge as support systems come.  It actively services the rag trade through skills development and mentorship, marketing, and a fashion technology and innovation Centre in The Fringe in collaboration with CPUT. Design members (350 plus fashion brands and industry stakeholders) also enjoy assistance with prototype development and the production of small runs, and CTFC doesn’t miss a day of Cape Town Fashion Week.

This year, CTFC launched WOZA  at Fashion Week. WOZA is a standalone brand that encourages consumers to ‘wear only South African’  and develops local pride in the wider South African fashion brand family. WOZA ‘s manager Sylvia Gruber explains the strategy further. “We want to keep it very funky and cool – and whilst managed from our side – we want to create its own space as a brand in the market and leave space for WOZA to affiliate to other SA brands. We are planning, for example, to develop tags that we will provide to stores to co-brand SA made fashion with WOZA – to help consumers identify what’s local.”

Spike the trend with the Twitter hash tag is #wozawearonlyza and contact info@wearonlyza.com for details. More at the CTFC site and on the brand’s dedicated site.

CTFC this year focused on Cape Town Fashion Week through the Foschini AFI Fastrack show. The Fastrack Day developmental initiative promotes the careers of students and graduates in design and retail and this year 20 fashion design students from 5 Colleges in Cape Town participated. The day saw a graduate design competition together with an emphasis on recruitment, interactive workshops, street fashion and entertainment. CTFC hosted the the Fastrack prize giving on 21 July at the CTFC offices. The winners included Chelsey Wilson, Mia Kriek and Thoki Tafeni who received prizes from Brothers.

But fastracking isn’t for winners alone – everyone can be a cut above the rest with the council’s help and an internet connection. The CTFC website is comprehensive, quick-reading and filled with relevant, easily accessible information including tips on how to get to the top, international trends, new outlets, trade announcements, as well as an industry directory.

What are you waiting for, fashionistas? WOZA! (more photos of Fashion Week 2011 here.

Images (c) Simon Deiner