The designer challenge is run by Cape Wools SA in partnership with SA Fashion Week, and requires designers to showcase the use and versatility of South African wool in all its facets, with an emphasis on its developing role in the contemporary luxury fashion arena.
The candidates are then selected by a panel of international fashion specialists, comprising: Eddie Marquez, fashion brand consultant, New York; Elizabeth Way, assistant curator of Costume at The Museum at the Fashion Institute of Technology (or The Museum at FIT); Louis de Beer, chief executive officer at Cape Wools SA; Nicoletta Morozzi, director of the Fashion Department at NABA; Noah Kozlowski, global designer relations at IMG Fashions; and Sheila-Mary Carruthers, design director at Carruthers Associates, Honorary Professor at Heriot Watt University, School of Textiles and Design.
As their prize, the winners will be showing both their AW19 and SS19 collections at SA Fashion Week, free of charge. The designers will also have the opportunity to attend the 'Making it in Textiles' Conference in Bradford in the UK, during October, with flights and accommodation fully paid for.
Erre and AKJP take the mantle from 2017 winners, Jacques van der Watt of Black Coffee and Ephraim Molingoana of Ephymol.
Erre (pronounced 'air') is a South African fashion label that aims to give women a sense of power through the way they dress.
A Pretoria-based design duo, Louw and Jaume showed their first collection at SA Fashion Week in 2013. Erre has since become a household name in the creative fashion design industry.
This luxury brand is stylish, wearable, feminine, style-savvy, sophisticated and designed for the successful multifaceted woman.
AKJP was born out of the 'Adriaan Kuiters + Jody Paulsen' collaboration between Adriaan Kuiters’ designer Henning, and artist Paulsen.
The Cape Town brand’s signature is its artful contemporary twist on classic and utilitarian menswear. AKJP uses layering, boxy silhouettes and asymmetrical detailing as a signature styling feature. AKJP continues as one of SA’s most innovative brands, and with each range it affirms its place in the local fashion landscape, as the last word on all things contemporary and cool.
