August 8, 2006
By Ndaba Dlamini
CELEBRATIONS to mark Women's Month take on a fashion twist, when Strangelove, a partnership between designers, Carlo Gibson and Ziemek Pater, stages a photographic fashion cocktail called Free Style and a fashion show entitled Selvage at the Afronova Art Gallery in Newtown.
Free Style opened at the Gallery on Tuesday, 25 July and will run until August 19 and Selvage is on at the same venue on Friday, 11 August. The two shows, part of the Women in Arts Festival, are a celebration of the beauty of South African women.
Free Style features Cape Town based Crispian Plunket, "a shining star in fashion photography", Nontsikelelo "Lolo" Veleko and Strangelove. Recognised for his ambiguous punk attitude and outrageous profile in the fashion photography industry, Plunket lives and works in Cape Town and has done work for major brands including Metro FM, Cell C and J&B among others. Some of his high-profile retail fashion clients include Lavis, YDE and the Foschini Group.
Fine art photographer, Nonstikelelo Veleko, has been gathering a great deal of attention with her striking work entitled Beauty is in the eyes of the beholder. Born in 1977, Veleko's works are colourful explorations of African contemporary style, "a result of documentation and construction of urban street fashion culture in Johannesburg's city centre and surrounding townships". The resulting portraits express aspirations of wealth, power and individuality through experimentation with dress.
Established in February 2001, the Strangelove partnership is as comfortable in an art gallery as it is in a fashion show or dance festival. They add a twist of acid to the mix with new photographs of recent collaborative works with Hannelie Coetzee in their fashion show entitled Selvage. The fashion show is expected to add vibrancy to the fashion photography exhibition and will also feature Nelisiwe Xaba.
Selvage, in abstract terms, is about the constructive role played by women in society. Taken from the term "selvage", meaning an edge of a piece of fabric that is woven so that it will not fray, the fashion show alludes to the pivotal role women play in keeping the fabric of society together.
Say the designers: "By exposing the raw edges of the cloth in the costumes and presenting layered images of the female form we are illustrating the many layers or facets of femininity, layers which are overlooked as contemporary society focuses the spotlight merely on the exterior".
The Afronova Gallery is open on Tuesday to Saturday from 1pm to 8pm. For more information about the two shows, contact Afronova at 083 726 5906 or email afronova@tiscali.co.za.
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