[Insert Fashion Here] | Fashion month prep & feminist tees | Vol. 1, Issue 3

Hi folks! Today's one comes to you a day late, courtesy of a crazy week - freelance life went zero to 100 in like, 2 days, and may not slow down until Tuesday. Such is the nature of the beast, I guess! But on to more important things: Fashion Month is coming, and so are weekly round ups!

Tome SS19 @ NYFW

I have no idea what my September looks like just yet, but I do know that there's no way fashion month news will fit into 2 of these, so on the last day of the previous or the first day of the next, there will be a wrap up mail for each of the big 4. Fun!!! We'll see how it goes and maybe extend to other fashion weeks later. Like Copenhagen, which just happened and was really great, but was no match for the flu I am FINALLY getting over.

So what else is new?

Kenneth Ize | LVMH Prize

1. Prayers up for Thebe Magugu & Kenneth Ize, the two African designers in the final 8 of the LVMH Prize. By the time the next newsletter comes out we will have a winner announcement (literally the day after, so for live freakouts should one of them win the whole thing, please see IG stories on the day). In related but less-suspenseful-more-awesome news, they were both featured in a British Vogue editorial celebrating African designers, alongside more established names like Maki Oh. They also sold selected pieces from their collections in a limited edition LVMH finalist capsule on 24Sevres, LVMH's e-commerce boutique experiment. I would genuinely be happy with one of everything.

Dior tee | Mic

2. Is it me, or does local fashion not seem too bothered with the feminist agenda? And by local fashion I mean the retailers who put on big campaigns for almost everything else. It's the end of August and I'm thinking about how FMCG businesses in South Africa seem to do much more women's month campaigning than the likes of MRP, Edgars, Woolies, etc. There's an acknowledgement, yes, but there's no big brand play in the fashion space, ala those controversial Dior tees. Just some nice Instagram posts followed by weird targeted tweets trying to sell us tyres with ads covered in pink. I wonder, if for fashion in SA, it's about respecting the day and what it means by not commercialising it.

A look from Rich Mnisi's "Milorho" Collection | Ph. Ricardo Simal | Faculty Press (web screenshot)

3. The piece I wrote for Faculty Press is up online! It went into print late last year before Thebe took the yearbook along to IFS in February (and then won) before taking it to the LVMH semifinals where he handed a copy to Anna Wintour. I'm not over it. The piece is about country of origin labelling, and how we can be intentional about shaping what Made in South Africa represents to the rest of the world.

Elle Magazine Nigeria on Instagram

4. From one of my homes to the other: A couple of weeks ago Rusty Beukes (GQ fashion director) alerted me to the existence of an Elle Magazine Nigeria Instagram account! It is verified and appears to be legit (apparently you can fake the blue tick these days!) and is being followed by Orange Culture designer Adebayo Oke-Lawal, former Elle South Africa fashion editor Dimeji Alara, and top model Oluchi. For now, the account is posting images and quotes from stories in other global editions of Elle, and answering every query for more info with "coming soon!" Try as I did, I could not find out when it will go into print or when a site will arrive but I will keep digging!

iChume/Me&B | Instagram

5. Young South African fashion brands are making some exciting retail moves and we love to see it! In particular, I'm excited about iChume and Me&B. iChume is a quality leather shoe line made in Durban that I found out about through a primary school friend I reconnected with on Instagram (hi Purval!) who now works for them and gifted me a pair at SAFW earlier this year (thanks Purval!). They're a pair of leopard print hide pool slides that I wear almost every day now, because they solve the main problem we all have with slides: arch support! They are VERY well padded, which not only saves you from that annoying feeling of your foot having to carry the shoe around, but also makes them supremely comfortable. They've been looking for stockists and the line is now available on Zando!

Me&B is another local brand whose team I met up with at SAFW after exchanging jokes on Instagram for ages (IG for the win, I don't know about you but I meet such great people!). Kelly (the daughter half of the mother-daughter team behind Me&B) also gifted me a pair of pretty tortoise shell earrings that I ADORE and really should wear more often. If you haven't already seen their very popular sweater on Instagram, you're about to see it everywhere: this Summer, Me&B is coming to The Space AND Superbalist.com! Kelly sent me a peek at what to expect, launching Sept (Superbalist)/Oct (The Space): 'A delicious mix of rusts/stone and milk with directional prints like tie dye and ditsy's.'

Me&B SS19/20 preview

Cheers to them, and yes to more of this!

Savage X Fenty | Instagram

6. The Victoria's Secret telecast is all but dead as CEO Lee Wexner "rethinks" what to do with the event -- RIP -- but guess who's ready to pick up the slack with a contemporary, inclusive replacement? Why it's Robyn Rihanna Fenty, of course. Riri has secured a streaming deal with Amazon Prime for her lingerie line Savage x Fenty's Fall/Winter 2019 show, coming to the platform on September 20th. It won't just be a fashion show watched online, though. Expect behind-the-scenes peeks at the making of the show and a "bold, sexy, super energetic experience for our viewers" according to Rihanna herself.

Aaand that's it for today! PS, I ended up going home with the brown printed dress from MantshoxHM. I was so surprised - I hardly wear brown, or yellow, and I'm much more into a placement print than a repeat, but my goodness, I look GOOD in that dress. Okay, that's all.

Modupe Oloruntoba is a fashion writer & content producer in Johannesburg, South Africa.