Since Jacques van der Watt’s South African Fashion Week (SAFW) debut in 1999, his stylistic imprint, Black Coffee has become one of Mzansi’s forerunners in the fashion landscape. Renowned for its innovative designs that pay close attention to detail and masterly combining vintage Azanian motifs into modern designs, Black Coffee has become synonymous with cutting-edge, indigenous fashion design.
Reaffirming its position as a shapeshifter in the fashion industry, Black Coffee was recently announced as one of the three brands to collaborate with ISUZU Motors in the upcoming SAFW, alongside fashion brands MUNKUS and Franc Ellis.
We have a quick catch up with the acclaimed designer who shares spoilers about his imprint’s collection at the upcoming Spring/Summer showcase, as well as his aspirations for the South African fashion landscape.
SA Fashion Week has made great strides over the past few years. What are some of the notable improvements that you have witnessed?
It’s been great to see more young designers and less established fashion brands being given an opportunity to showcase their work at SA Fashion Week. Black Coffee being one of the few brands to showcase at extravaganza speaks to its growth and is proof that we have many talented designers in the country.
There is also a lot of improvement in terms of media coverage, professionalism of the shows, and attendance. We are seeing more people, designers and fashion lovers alike from across the country coming attending the show because they understand and appreciate its value.
SA Fashion Week’s Spring/Summer show is just a few days away. What can we expect from Black Coffee at the extravaganza?
Black Coffee’s upcoming collection at SA Fashion Week is called ‘FLOAT.’ The collection was inspired by a documentary that I watched about a group of architects who developed the concept of a floating city. The futuristic idea is modern and comprises architectural features with molded cladding. I tend to work with a very continuous theme. Therefore, my collections tend to ‘float’ into each other consecutively. I’d like for my consumers to be able to collect things that they can pair well together from my collections.
The upcoming collection is a continuation of the pieces we introduced last summer in sensibility but taken a lot further. With this collection, we envisioned what we might be wearing in the future, without looking like Sci-fi movie characters. *chuckles * The underlying construction of the collection is pleating. We explore various handmade fabrics and pleating patterns. Overall, the collection is sophisticated, with many surface details such as texture and different shades.
As a designer, which collections do you enjoy working on most between Spring/ Summer and Autumn/ Winter?
I prefer winter because of the aesthetics. There is a lot to play around with when it comes to winter fashion. When I first started, I preferred doing summer showcases because they generally cost less. It is quite tricky to go all out for both summer and winter collections for most designers in South Africa because we don’t have two teams to work on the different seasons’ collections.
The South African fashion industry is growing and attracting more global audiences. What do you think can accelerate the industry’s growth?
I would love to see more interest in high fashion and less in fast fashion. We don’t see a keen interest in collecting high fashion pieces locally and I think it’s primarily because people tend to assume that the pieces are unnecessarily overpriced. There seems to be this idea that you must have many pieces to build a stylish wardrobe, which is not true. When you look at fashion consumers in Europe and other parts of the world, they have one or two investment pieces that look impeccable. We need more people to be aware of the benefits of investing in quality over quantity for both style purposes and the preservation of the environment.
