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CONTRIBUTORS
We asked our contributors: What does South Africa mean to you arie Taillefer
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The 27th April marks Freedom Day in South Africa, a national holiday. To celebrate the 25th anniversary of free elections we devote this issue to the memory of Nelson Mandela, the president who’s sense of style set him apart from other world leaders. Dress was an evocative political tool for Mandela’s public image, the sartorial embodiment of freedom and self constitution; his shirts set the tone for a new nation no longer defined by colonial power structures.
The generation of designers who emerged from more than half a century of Apartheid, have a strong cultural identity and unique aesthetic. The rest of the world is now enjoying the benifits of its mature style. We see evidence of this in the zig-zag knits of Laduma Ngxokolo who combines Cape Mohair from angora goats reared predominantly in the Eastern Cape, with the indiginous designs of the Xhosa region. Objects with their roots in colonialism such as the Voortrekker Keppie Bonnets, or the Basotho Blanket have been absorbed and re invented. At a time when the rights and wrongs of cultural appropriation are a hot potato, the striking painted homes of the Ndeble people stand as a treasured example of how a powerful aesthetic can emerge from a range of cultural influences as diverse as Cape Dutch gables, European packaging design and American cars from the 1950s. No appropriation here just creativity. Cape Town’s finest examples of modernity is the MOCA, a gallery carved from circular concreat grain silos standing proud in the baking sun and over looking the fairest bay in the world. The elements all of this energetic vibrant design have in common is the reinerpritation of geometry the endless variations of squares circles and triangles, mixed with colour and vigour. Uniting geometry and the healing benefits of craft practice are two stories of quilts that have emerged from war, those made by Boer soldiers, and those made by refugees from the conflict in Bosnia. Vibrancy and beauty can come from the darkest places.
Polly Leonard, Founder
ED SUTER
PETER RICH
LYDIA CASTON
In 2006 I returned to South Africa after living in New York and London for 17 years. What inspires me here is the colour and energy on the streets. I photograph all over the country, my images revealing what makes South Africa fascinating; the meeting of tradition and modernity in the way people express themselves, whether that’s a traditional Basotho blanket worn by a young man in the mountains of Lesotho or the same blanket turned into a trendy overcoat worn on the street in Johannesburg.
We in South Africa have eleven different language groups. On 2nd September, our Heritage Day holiday these groups proudly express their cultural differences through the way they dress. The textiles worn tell stories of identity. It is a joyous day, celebrating a unified rainbow nation while simultaneously showing pride in our differences. Africans have a unique, uninhibited way of combining colour and abstracting that which they reinterpret. There is order to their compositions but they certainly know where to break the rules.
Mandela's Madiba shirts played a role in the way he was perceived in South Africa and across international media. They are, however, only a small part of a vast South African textile history and we must consider the beautiful variety of textiles in this country alone. All too frequently are these dress narratives enmeshed under the broad umbrella of ‘African’; a continent often perceived as a bottomless source of inspiration for Euro-American fashion. Through Selvedge I have had the opportunity to share these unrepresented stories.
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