The finale of the 2014 DUT Fashion Show was held on Friday (3 October 2014) last week where the top contenders wowed the judges and fashion lovers as their ranges head-to-head on the runway.

This year, the top five winning categories were Most Innovative Range, Most Commercial Range, The Roy Holmes Award, Best Range on Show and Best Technical Student.

Themed: BLOG THIS BEESH, this year’s fashion show showcased designs of 30 third-year-students, with the best 15 ranges competing at the final showing held on the last day of the fashion show (Friday, 3 October 2014) at the University’s Fred Crookes Sports Centre, Steve Biko Campus.

Fatima Patel was announced as the Best Range on Show winner, walking away with a laptop with a fashion design software. The laptop was sponsored by the Fibre, Processing and Manufacturing Sector Education and Training Authority (F, P & M SETA).

Patel was also announced as a finalist in next year’s Africa Fashion International (AFI) Fastrack programme; a national fashion design development platform that aims to nurture and develop South Africa’s young and dynamic designers. In the programme, designers are offered an opportunity to “fast track” their careers through intensive mentorship, business development coaching and mentorship for future success.

Patel’s range featured shades of blue and a bit of nude. She said it was inspired by Islamic architecture as well as Origami, the traditional Japanese art of folding paper into a variety of decorative or representational forms such as animals and flowers.

“My range has a lot of smocking (decoration on a garment created by gathering a section of the material into tight pleats and holding them together with parallel stitches in an ornamental pattern) which I did all by myself. The forms are really simple. I used a lot of satin and chiffon and also a bit of cotton,” she said.

The students had three months to put together their ranges, and this was Patel’s biggest challenge. She however managed to complete her range on time and was excited about her award. “Time constraint was the biggest issue. I’m so excited to have won. It’s overwhelming. At the moment, I’m not too sure about my future plans but I’d like to open my own boutique one day or maybe work with someone for experience and see how it goes. In terms of studies, I’m not sure about my BTech but maybe I’ll do it,” she said.

Speaking about the AFI Fastrack programme, Greg Wallis; Chairman of the KZN Fashion Council and AFI Fastrack KZN Representative, who was also one of the judges in the DUT Fashion Show said AFI has been showcasing the AFI programme for the past six years. The programme selects the best fashion design students from all SA learning institutions which offer fashion design as a course.

“Last year (2013), one of the DUT students was selected and made it to the finals. In 2012, with AFI being absolutely adamant that they would only chose one winner, we had three winners and all three came from DUT. What this means for the designer is that they will be catapulted into the fashion design arena and will be sent to a leading manufacturer where they will be mentored for a period of time. They will also be paid to do a collection for that manufacturer.

It is a huge opportunity, and many of the young good designers in South Africa at the moment have passed through this process,” he said.
Patel, Sarah Stoute, Blaire Hill, Lauren Straker, Bongekile Manana, Racine Denny, Sadie Bosworth-Smith, Ntabiseng Molefe and Elaine Mulder were selected for the programme.

-Sinegugu Ndlovu

Pictured: Faima Patel alongside models wearing her range which earned her the Best Range on Show award during the finale of this year’s (2014) DUT Fashion Show held at the University’s Fred Crookes Sports Centre, DUT Steve Biko Campus, on Friday (3 October 2014) last week.