BY Nkosazana Ngwadla
It’s not every day that a South African artist is awarded the opportunity to showcase their art on a global platform, but Anita Hlazo, a fashion designer based in Delft, Cape Town has been shortlisted Africa Fashion Week in London to be held in October 2023.
Anita is the designer behind Afrogrunge – a brand creating culture through street style by celebrating POC who venture into aesthetics outside the generally believed to be correct ones. Afrogrunge might have been shortlisted for this amazing opportunity, but it needs your help to get there.
Anita explains, “Afrogrunge was inspired by my personal experience of what it felt like to be a black girl in the locations of Cape Town who strongly identified with a lifestyle less travelled.
I experimented with my identity by fashioning my body infusing black culture with my interests in the Caucasian-established subculture Grunge within my community, Gugulethu at the time.
Due to the lack of acceptance, representation and understanding of how I chose to express myself through clothing, body modification, and the genre of music I listened to. I was driven by need to fit in somehow, or at least see individuals like me on the internet.
This lack in representation offline and online as well as the lack of accessibility to this style in stores around my area, lead me to try and fulfil those gaps. First I created a ‘box’ I could fit into and labeled it Afrogrunge. Once I completed high school, in 2013 , I perused Fashion Design. I studied it at the Cape Peninsula University of Cape Town, graduating with a Degree in Fashion in 2017 and I officially started a Fashion Design Business in 2018, I transformed Afrogrunge to a company that would be accessible to P.O.C who loved the alternative-grunge aesthetic within our black communities like I did when growing up.
Since then, I have showcased at South African Fashion Week, as an emerging creative in collaboration with artists Bu Kihang in 2018. I dressed influencer Abongwe Qobeka for Afropunk Joburg 2018 and the outfit was captured by photograpeher Trevour Sturmaan and the image landed on VogueUK [image 32]. Later that year I was featured on an editorial called Kids from Joburg now found in Vougue Italia [image 13].
I have also worked with artist Moonchild Sanelly on a collaborative outfit found in her songs’ music video Yebo Teacher [pink ensamble]. Recently I have been dressing musician Thandeka Mfinyongo and her band on her project Ingoduko. One of my biggest achievements late last year 2022 and early this year is having been blessed to work with streetwear giants who focused on women in the creative space namely Nike Woman and Redbat Posse.
I would love to reach an international audience physically. It will be an eye-opening experience and honestly mind-blowing to have dreamt of creating Afrogrunge as a need to fit in and now have it presented on a global stage.
I applied to showcase at Africa Fashion Week in London and have been shortlisted to showcase there in October 2023. I need assistance with raising fund to secure this opportunity through a package they offer us designers valued at 1000 pounds. I also will need to cover return flights to from South Africa to London, and traveling expenses to while in the city for fittings and rehearsals .
I have fortunately secured free accommodation from Ntandokazi Qwabe, who is willing to host me for a period of a week. I will also need to cover visa costs, and other costs that may happening during this planning process, that I may not know as of yet as this will my first time ever flying internationally.
I am in the process of applying for funding for this trip and will hold various fund raising events throughout the months I have before October.
Donation link: HELP AFROGRUNGE SHOWCASE AT AFRICA FASHION WEEK IN LONDON | GoGetFunding
