Linea students chosen for condom fashion competition

Two students: Aobakwe and Kgomotso have been chosen to participate in the finals of the SAFDI/SACTWU Condom Fashion Design Project. The competition was open to all students currently studying fashion design. Only ten were chosen to participate in the finals that takes place in Cape Town in late October.

Fashion with a purpose
CONDOMS are fashionable. That's the theme in a competition design students across the country are involved in. Students are encouraged to make fashionable garments from condoms for the competition.

The message organisers are hoping to get across in the process is that using condoms, to prevent the spread of HIV/Aid is a positive trend.The slogan was coined by the health and design unit at the South African Clothing, Textiles and Worker Union.Vimrashni Govender, events and information officer at the union's worker health programme, explains that many South African young people have been affected by HIV/Aids.

"We had to find a way in which to disseminate pertinent messages about sexual health, particularly prevention, so that they would be heard."The fashion competition ... will surely grab the attention of South African youth and get them thinking about condoms in a positive way," she said.Govender said many storyboard entries complete with business plans had already been received and, once the top 10 had been selected, the students would be handed their share of the 50 000 coloured and flavoured condoms donated by Masculan to begin creating the garments.

The winner, who will be announced on November 7, will receive R30 000 to action his or her business plan.This is an essential outcome of the competition, said Renato Palmi, the KwaZulu-Natal representative for the South African Fashion Designers Institute (Sadfi), a design unit of the union.

"At Safdi we want the youth to start thinking about design as a business, and to start thinking about themselves as designers within the larger industry," says Palmi.As a registered member of Safdi the winner will be linked with registered manufacturers.Palmi says: "As a transparent, national support network for designers Safdi is a membership based institute, open to applications from all designers and registered fashion students," adding that, it is vital to understand that this does not mean they will be joining the union."

Over the years many fashion designers have asked SACTWU to take up their concerns, the union has now decided to provide a platform within its fold for designers to meet and be able to use the organisational capacity of the union to take forward their ideas. Safdi, through its association with the union, will be able to harness the wider power of organised labour," he said."This is a means of nurturing, not just the designers, but the industry as a whole," he said.

By OMESHNIE NAIDOO

Published on the web by Mercury on October 4, 2009.
Published in the Tonight-Gauteng
© Mercury 2009. All rights reserved.