from women24
Image: Ivan Naude

As part of Sanlam SA Fashion Week's (SSAFW) ongoing focus on strengthening the power of local fashion brands, SA's premier fashion platform will be introducing the national SSAFW Winter Collections from 23-24 March 2007 at Museum Africa in Johannesburg.

The SSAFW Winter Collections will include designers from across South Africa and will be presented in the more intimate, salon-style format. These winter shows are intended to showcase designers' new collections to core industry stakeholders, media and top clients.

"We are encouraging the designers to focus on fabric selection and workmanship by presenting their collections to an audience of industry leaders, media and other experts. The focus turns to the essentials of fashion and the businesses supporting it as opposed to fashion shows intended for entertainment-value only" explains Lucilla Booyzen, SSAFW director.

In consultation with all the designers lined up for the event, it has been confirmed that their winter collections will be available in stores nationwide from 1 April 2007.

Most important is that SSAFW Winter is at the end of the rest of the globe's fashion weeks – the date has been selected to slot in with the international seasons and have also been forwarded to international fashion events to be included into their calendars.

In partnership with Sanlam, SA Fashion Week has continued to focus its efforts on the business of fashion, most importantly laying a platform to allow designers to grow not only the creative side of their businesses but also the business side.

To this end initiatives such as the DAC Seminars and Workshops, DAC/SSAFW Fashion Fusion project and Business Fitness Analyses supplied by Sanlam have become an integral offering in the Sanlam SA Fashion Week annual calendar.

Directly following the SSAFW Winter Collections, Booyzen (in her role as South Africa's representative on the World Fashion Council) will travel along with Sun Goddess to the World Fashion Awards and World Fashion Week in Los Angeles.

SSAFW 2007 (Spring/Summer) follows at the end of August (30 August – 2 September), after which the SSAFW Regional Collections travel nationally to Cape Town, Pretoria and Durban (from 12 September).

The following designers will be showing at the Sanlam SA Fashion Week Winter Collections 2007
24 March 2007 (preliminary order of showing)