There are so many fashion weeks it can be hard to keep up, Africa Fashion Week kicked off for the first time ever last week in Johannesburg, so who better to give us an introduction than CQ street style regular and African fashion maven Arieta Mujay?
So what's your involvement in the African fashion scene?
I have been Muse and Stylist to the award-winning Deola Sagoe, pictured right, who is one of the biggest fashion designers in Africa. She has also won the award for African designer of the year a few times.
I have also been consulting for a few other African designers such as Zed Eye, Jewel by Lisa, Lanre Da Silva and Dakou. The fact that I work in fashion PR in the UK exposes me to a lot which I incorporate into my consulting.
Which country in Africa do you think has the most going on fashion wise? Definitely Nigeria and South Africa, they're the biggest fashion countries on the continent. Johannesburg fashion week has been going on for 7 years now, so there is a thriving industry there.
Can you explain a bit the African attitude to fashion and how it
differs from Europe or America?
Africans love bright colours! It's always sunny there and as a result they aren't too keen on the dark colour palette favoured by the west. The brighter and bolder the better, as far as we're concerned. We also love good prints as most of our traditional garments are based around prints. They would love Zandra Rhodes
What do you think of the new fashion week in South Africa? I think it's fabulous, we are happy for any sort of spotlight on African fashion design. It's definitely an industry on its way up, watch out the Africans are coming!!
[Image, left: sansalterego]