Colour me bad for never having reviewed ALC Menswear. The brand established by renowned designer Amanda Laird Cherry describes itself as “ready-to-wear designed and styled for conscious individuals”. Their show on Friday night at SA Menswear Week SS19 had me lean forward, smile, scratch my head, breathe a sigh of relief and applaud, all in 20 minutes. You can’t get more conscious reactions than that.
SA Menswear Week SS19, Africa’s only menswear-focussed fashion platform, rolled out on Friday evening. Now celebrating its 8th season, the production fell nothing short of spectacular. The Lookout in the V&A Waterfront, Cape Town provided a picturesque backdrop on an unusually warm winter’s day in Cape Town; a day I decided to wear a full-length faux fur coat. *face palm* Yes people, I was back in the front row – don’t know how I wangled that – with my partner-in-style / fashion police buddy Duncan Pape.
I wore an exquisite pair of gold cigarette pants by fab, glam and crazy local designers Bridget Pickering and Ludwig Bauch of RuffTung. I paired this with my current favourite, the aforementioned weather-be-damned coat and a flat cap which I’d bought from The Kilo Shop in Paris earlier this year. My birdy print chiffon blouse by French label le Temps des Cerises, and my sunglasses are Ross and Brown from Langaro Lifestyle Centre in Camps Bay. They have a mother of a sale on which you can read about here. My bag is Michael Kors, a 2017 birthday gift to myself. Oh, my nude brogues are Woolies, a store I do not purchase fashion from but bought out of pure desperation earlier that day.
I know, I know. I don’t deserve you. Here I am apologising for my absence again. Okay, so what have I been up to? Well, since returning from Paris which feels like a lifetime ago, I had to dive straight back into work. It’s a little-known fact that Langaro Lifestyle Centre in Camps Bay is one of my clients. When their Winter 2018 fashion collection launched, we made a fancy, schmancy video about the trends for the season, why we bought what we did, and how to style the looks. Not only from a sartorial perspective but hair and makeup as well.
The beauty of working with Langaro is that we’re all multi-faceted. Kirsty Da costa, the director, is an accomplished makeup artist. Spa manager Gabriel Verreyne is also a senior hair stylist, and Duncan Pape, whom you’ve heard of here often is a spa consultant and a stylist. I jump around. One minute I’m generating digital content, the next I’m buying collections and photographing models with Duncan. It’s insane but we love what we do and respect each other immensely.
Anyhoo, about that video. Ooohhhh, I do not like my voice. And that double chin. Argh! If videographer Shaun Smit from Red Blur Productions weren’t so cute, nice and talented, I’d strangle him. But I got talk fashion, which was so much fun, and we even squeezed in some big people’s words like “deconstruct” and “voluminous”. Take a look.
So here’s the killer deal; all this stock is now on sale!
Get 50% off this Winter 2018 collection, and 70% off all the other pieces in their style boutique if you buy two or more items.
With snazzy brands like Lui Jo, Le Temps Des Cerises, Cream London an Gordon Smith, your winter wardrobe is literally in the bag. Local brands which are not on sale include the uber sexy ZeitGeist which I reviewed at SA Menswear Week here, as well as the newly launched activewear range Premier Active designed by local model Danielle Ehlers. See, we do lots.
Cheers to our gorgeous models Siphiwe Machinya, Julia Tooke, Liz Croes, Justine Tait and Leah Ballan, and behind-the-scenes production manager, Nicci Kruger. We’ll get her on camera sometime soon.
Follow Langaro Lifestyle Centre on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. Shop the style boutique online here and follow its own Instagram page, @langarostyle.
Have fun, stylish ones.
love & light
CDx
PS: It feels good to be back again. I’m ready.
When Glamour SA editor-in-chief Pnina Fenster asked if I wanted to be featured in the April issue, my heart skipped a beat. You know she’s my girl crush, right? The brief was to show a non-red carpet event outfit which I felt most glamorous in.
Without hesitation, I catapulted images and a blurb of a RuffTung jumpsuit I wore back in 2016 to her. Little did I know, the entire issue, Pnina’s last for Glamour SA, would be an ode to South African fashion and design, and that my fave RuffTung designers would grace the cover. I couldn’t make this up even if I tried. Take a look.
To know fashion is to know it’s history, and by history I mean learn about what led the designer to that moment in time, to that collection. It’s easy to sit front row and critique creativity; more often than not spew an opinion based on how well the hospitality bar is stocked. Not cool.
I visited the Musée Yves Saint Laurent in Paris on Tuesday afternoon with no expectations. I often pride myself on getting to know designers beforehand which allows me to formulate opinions of their collections after the show. This visit was different as I’d not done much research on the history of YSL.
