African designers headline in New York

18 Jan 2010

ARISE, global style and culture magazine, has announced the names of top African designers who will feature at the 2010 New York Fashion Week as part of the magazine's African Collective Part III. It is part of the magazine's commitment to showcase African fashion through a series of international ARISE-branded events.

Black Coffee

Black Coffee, a South African label also featured at the Berlin Fashion Week, will show on the international fashion stage. “It's very exciting to be given this opportunity by ARISE magazine,” says designer Jacques van der Watt. “It's a great experience for us, and a little bit of a treat in a career that is a lot of hard work.”

Lagos-based Deola Sagoe will be returning to New York a decade after her first US show. “It's been exactly 10 years since my very first show in New York,” says the designer. “It makes this occasion exceedingly gratifying. To have come this far ordains a measure of success that I could not have imagined for myself, or any other African designer of calibre. Many thanks to ARISE magazine for providing this platform.”

For the first time, an emerging designer, Loin Cloth and Ashes, from Tanzania, will also be part of the collective.

“My one dream was always to show my work in Africa,” says Anisa Mpungwe of Loin Cloth and Ashes, “I would have never for one minute thought that I would ever show overseas, let alone in America.”

The ARISE magazine African Collective Part III has moved to the main Bryant Park Tent and will be presented at 8pm on Saturday, 13 February 2010.

“Showing in the larger Bryant Park tent is testament to the continued success of the ARISE African Collective,” says Nduka Obaigbena, THISDAY chairman, publisher and editor-in-chief of ARISE magazine. “It also allows us to put on a bigger, more ambitious production and I look forward to what is sure to be an amazing usage of African visual aesthetics recreated on the catwalk.

“As we enter a new decade, all eyes are on Africa. The 2010 FIFA World Cup takes place in South Africa and it is the 50 year anniversary of independence for many African states, including Nigeria.

"ARISE looks forward to the continued positive growth on the continent and shares in the global optimism of the next 50 years in Africa's evolvement.”