Daniela Visser

Born in 1990, on the 11^th of August in Bloemfontein, Daniela found her love for art and design at a young age. Being highly involved in her primary school market days, in Augrabies, she made and sold hairclips with feathers, Barbie handbags made of leather and much, much more. On the art side of things she took part in art classes, learning how to sketch and finding her love for fabric painting. 

Being inspired by fashion trends of the past, this is visible in the shape of the dress' collar, and also in the puffy sleeves. The bold colour sort of gives it a more modern edge with the contrasting white sleeve edges and collar. The bow-tie is a very playful accesory to finish off the look, especially the fact the its striped red. Very bold, almost daring to wear.

 This being at the age of twelve, she also started making clothing and handbags for herself. Unfortunately part of her chosen subjects in high school did not include any creative classes, because the school was agricultural, thus, her having to take part time art classes. In standard 8 she still had her mind set on doing fashion design, but realizing that she loves to make things with her hands, using wire, beading etc, she thought, why not jewellery design. Till today Daniela is studying jewellery by day, and making clothing for herself by night.

Here is a perfect example of a silver doily patterned hair clip that she had chased and domed, her designs are very soft and girly as seen above. In the pin of the clip she set a tear drop rose quartz.

The kinds of designs that she likes are very girly, feminine type designs, including lace, doilies and filigree.  She tends to be inspired by vintage pieces, like cameos and old frames. Bringing in her love of fashion she also gets a lot of ideas from fashion trends from the 30s to 50s.

She is planning to complete her National Diploma for Jewellery Design and Manufacture and follow that up with studying Fashion design.  Her dream is to have her own Vintage store, having vintage clothing, along with her own clothing items and jewellery pieces that she designed and made. 

http://whatismakeuptoday.blogspot.com/2010/09/vivienne-westwood.html

Her main role model is Vivienne Westwood, she is the reason for Daniela’s interest in studying fashion design. She loves her style and how she manipulates the material to make these beautifully interesting designs. Her work is not wearable but explosively eye-catching and bold.

This neckpiece also includes a lace-like pattern, it looks almost antique,she sweat soldered the flowers within the pattern and finished off with blackening and a black silk ribbon. 

 Another influence in her life are her parents, being artists themselves. Her mother, is a painter and her father is a cheese maker and farmer. She is inspired by the fact that they are doing what they love. Her father loves landscaping, resulting in him designing their whole garden back home in Augrabies. Her parents also love to interior design, thus, her home being chosen to feature in Home Magazine.

These fly-pressed cuff-links are also cut out from a doily pattern but what also gives it that vintage feel is the blackening, and then theres a almost contrasting soft pink rose quartz, againts the "dirty looking" black.

Here are examples of her using cameo inspiration for fly-pressed and roll-pressed cufflinks, showing her love for vintage.

She plans to market herself by setting up a page on Facebook, and she also will depend on hear-say, ultimately she will set up her own website displaying her jewellery and her fashion pieces. This will give her the upper hand in the design industry, her having strengths in both jewellery and fashion. 

When looking at these casted rings you would not say this is the same person, they are very hard-edged, sleek and modern, very simple and clean, she explained that this is the other side of her style, she likes both decorative and bold designs. This gives her clients a lot of versatility, she will be able to satisfy a larger target market.

Here we are looking at some of the clothes Daniela has made, her love for vintage is quite obvious, and this shows in her choice of materials and colour cremes.

 Here is a dress she has made as well, a lot of her dresses and tops, have a signature style of buttons along the back, making it a wonderful feature that people would not normally look at.

Gavin Rajah

http://www.expressoshow.com/articles/Celebrity---Gavin-Rajah-–-Fashion-Designer?articleID=448

Couturier and avid humanitarian activist, a UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador, Gavin Rajah is one of South Africa’s leading women’s wear designers making him a household name. He started his own fashion house ten years ago. He is a co-founder of Cape Town Fashion Week and was the first South African ever to be invited to show his collection at the Paris Fashion Week , and now he is facing a whole new challenge all together, menswear.

 I really love this piece, it reminds me of the classic victorian style with the collar feature and lace details, he gave it a modern and sexier feel with the sheer, almost daringly see-through pieces inbetween the lace, it is so elegant with the creamy shades of ivory and small diamante button details.

http://mybennucafe.com/tag/ganvin-rajah/

As a brand he is one with discerning style. He designs eclectic creations of gilded glamour with a cutting edge style. They pay special attention to silhouette and are distinct in flow and texture. His work has featured in international publications such as L’Officiel, Vogue, Milnao Finanza, Harper’s & Queen and the Los Angeles Times.  He has organized an exhibition on Traditional Art and Crafts in the US for Steven Spielberg and received worldwide coverage for the various empowerment groups that displayed their work. His interests range from esoteric psychology to socio-political theory. He has dressed many celebrities including Naomi Campbell, Beyonce, Jodie Kidd, Paris Hilton, Celine Dion, Cameron Diaz, Tyra Banks, Tina Turner, Tom Cruise, Mark Shuttleworth, Graca Machel and last but not least, our very own former president Nelson Mandela. 

 I love this dress too, the beautifully jewelled blue colour absolutely pops, its so vibrant and striking using a flowing material with a bold colour, it looks like liquid, it is a stunning cut that would compliment any woman who wears it.

http://thejadelotusbeauty.blogspot.com/2010/10/some-exquisite-designs-by-gavin-rajah.html

His collection is available at some of the most fashionable stores in the world such as Colette, Dieci Corso Come, Vila Moda and Browns, and he is represented in 11 countries. Amongst his projects include designing jewellery collections for The Tanzanite Foundation and De Beers, he also designed a jewellery collection for Rosy Blue in Belgium and for Nagahori in Japan. He is featured as a designer/judge in “America’s Next Top Model” by Tyra Banks, in the US and in Jodie Kidd’s reality program, “Fashion Avenue” in the UK.  He is also a judge in “Holland’s Next Top Model”.

 This dress is very goddess like, his designs look rich and luxurious, it is so elegant with the gold details waterfalling down the front.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/84722331@N00/

This South African designer is no stranger to events like the J&B Met.  With clients that include Shashi Naidoo, Tatum Keshwar, Basetsana Kumalo and Michelle McLean it is no surprise that Gavin Rajah’s clothes are the first choice of the cream of South Africa’s celebrity crop.  He is known for his beautifully feminine clothing.



“One of the things I don’t want to do is interpret the theme literally,” Gavin Rajah said when being asked about the 2011 J&B Met Larger than Life theme. “I don’t like to dress clients like they’re going to a costume party “Well for me, larger than life is a celebration of the spirit of life, I’ll be going short and ultra-sexy,” he said. “I want to create fashion-forward styles that sometimes use lingerie as outer garments.” The theme in his opinion was more about colour than volume, with a prediction that many people would be totally bold and out there at this year’s races.

 I really like the cut of the dress and the detail along the neckline. Its flowy and summery, I really like the play in pattern, its a great spin on animal print.

http://juicyjemma.blogspot.com/2011/01/j-met-larger-than-life-indeed.html

When he was asked which J&B Met outfits was his favourite, he said, “, “This year I’d have to say Lee-Ann Liebenberg’s dress.
The dress is a gorgeously feminine design and has been made using fabric imported from France”. The fabric is an abstract interpretation of leopard-print, it combines yellows, golds and browns giving it that ultra-chic look. It is sure to have many people double taking. This is not to say that the other dresses are average, as a designer who has had runway shows across the world, he always delivers.

 This dress is quite daring being made up of the sheer material and being covered up here and there with the black lace details, it really looks like a second skin.http://hungoveronfashion.blogspot.com/2011/05/sheer-fashion-at-cannes-2011.html

Each of his garments has his signature style but combined with the influence of the person he is dressing, being the reason why his work is so sought after. Rajah likes colours, giving his pieces a unique energy. He also likes to experiment with colours of the same shades or to contrast them equally. Gavin Rajah likes to see his garments worn than seeing them displayed in a museum and he works for women who like to dress elegantly and yet casually.

His suits would attract any modern metro sexual business man, he gave suits a really cool fashion forward look, by making use of other materials such as the semi shiny one on the left, its subtle making it still very appropriate for any event from office to gala dinner.

He also said, when being asked about his new men’s collection that the target market he is going for is a style that is not overly flashy, the men they want to dress are engaged in business and appreciate the fine things in life. Part of the inspiration process was affected by the movie “American Gigolo”. Giving his market exactly what they want this collection is more about exceptionally formal styling and tailoring.

http://www.hautefashionafrica.com/features/fall-08-trend-report/

I really love Gavin Rajah’s work because it has a classically elegant style, tailoring that make any women look and feel incredible. His work is very classy using fabrics that make the clothes look luxurious, I think he is doing South African fashion designers a great favour, attracting more attention to our talents and what we have to offer, giving South Africans a chance to prove ourselves. His work is beautifully bold, using vibrant colours in his work but also classically neutrals and black.

 I really like how he finished off this dress with the ribbon-like detailing on her shoulders, it really flows into the design.

http://thejadelotusbeauty.blogspot.com/2010/10/some-exquisite-designs-by-gavin-rajah.html

http://www.gavinrajah.com/

http://www.whoswhosa.co.za/gavin-rajah-5768

http://www.fashionwindows.com/gallery/gavin_rajah/default.asp

http://www.designindaba.com/speaker/gavin-rajah

Christian Louboutin

Born on the 7^th of January 1964, Christian Louboutin is a French footwear designer. He launched his line of high-end women’s shoes in France in 1991. Since 1992, his designs have incorporated the shiny, red-lacquered soles that have become his signature. Louboutin filed an application for U.S. trademark protection of this red sole design on the 27^th of March 2007.

I love these shoes because they are classy,simple style with a splash of diamante detail. Paying attention to other aspects of shoes, like the heel, is a great new way of looking at shoe designing.

http://stylecheckup.com/the-shoe-genius-christian-louboutin/

From the age of 12, Louboutin would regularly sneak out of school to visit the market at Vila do Conde, where all the gipsies loved his shoes. Although Louboutin faced much opposition following his decision to leave school so early, he believes that his decision was made final after watching an interview on TV with Sophia Loren. In this interview she introduced her sister saying that she had to leave school when she was only 12 but got her degree when she turned 50. “Everybody applauded! And I thought, “Well, atleast if I regret it I’m going to be like the sister of Sophia Loren!”

He never wanted to work in fashion, he focused for a while on landscape and gardening, but was interested in the stage instead. He adored shoes and says, ”nobody wears shoes like a dancer on stage”. So he decided to devote himself to fashionable footwear. He admits to have spent a lot of time as a teenager, drawing shoes with compressed buckles and with soles, in his school notebooks. These shoes would become the base of Louboutin’s sales as a designer.

I really like this image, showing that his designs are not restricted to comfort, his work is his art, its sexy and different.

http://www.passport2fabulous.com/2010/08/christian-louboutin/

He then began attending parties and dance halls in Paris, offering his shoes to women, unfortunately most of these ladies rejected his shoes claiming to have no money. He first trained with Charles Jourdan and freelanced with Chanel and Yves St. Laurent with his shoe designs. He also met the great shoe designer Roger Vivier and helped him organize an exhibition of Vivier’s work.

Louboutin helped bring stilettos back into fashion in the 1990s to 2000s, designing dozens of styles with heel heights of 120mm and higher. “Making a woman look sexy, beautiful, to make her legs look as long as I can”, this was the designers professed goal. Louboutin is better known for his dressier evening wear designs incorporating jeweled straps, bows, feathers, patent leather and other small decorative touches, even though he does offer some lower-heeled styles.

In his U.S. trademark application, Louboutin explains the inception of the signature red soles:

"In 1992 I incorporated the red sole into the design of my shoes. This happened by accident as I felt that the shoes lacked energy so I applied red nail polish to the sole of a shoe. This was such a success that it became a permanent fixture."

Louboutin paints the soles of his shoes bright red regardless of their colour, the actual heel of the shoe leaves a red rosette imprint behind. He calls them his “follow me” shoes. Because of their trademark red leather sole, it makes these shoes instantly recognizable.

Louboutin’s lethal-looking stilettos were inspired by and incident that occurred in his early 20s. He had visited a museum and noticed that there was a sign, forbidding women wearing sharp stilettos from entering, because they were afraid of the damage it would cause to the extensive wood flooring. This image stayed in his mind, and he later used this idea in his designs. "I wanted to defy that," Louboutin has said. "I wanted to create something that broke rules and made women feel confident and empowered." ouboutin has topped The Luxury Institute's annual Luxury Brand Status Index (LBSI) for three years; the brand's offerings were declared the Most Prestigious Women's Shoes in 2007, 2008, and 2009.

There are Christian Louboutin stores located in Paris, New York, California, Las Vegas, Miami, Dallas, London, Ireland, Moscow, Hong Kong, Japan, Indonesia, Lebanon, Melbourne, Sydney, Dubai, Sao Paulo and many more.

Branded Louboutin shoes are sold in-store and online through various luxury goods retailers such as Harrods, Browns, Matches, Barneys, Sak Fifth Avenue, etc. The brand is under constant attack from fake knock off versions, often made in China. Louboutin's main website contains a prominent note stating that any other domain name containing the word "Louboutin" is very likely to be selling counterfeit goods. In the last few years, the company has served hundreds of DMCA notices on Google to remove many sites selling fake goods from their search results.[10] Even after this action, thousands of sites remain online. The company has recently set up a separate site mainly focuse don protecting the brand and stating hundreds of websites that sell fake goods, it also includes summaries of legal actions taken, including raids on factories, with photographs and videos of the mass destruction of counterfeit goods.

These shoes have a cool rockstar edge to them with the silver spikes but contrast of "girly" glitter, the metallic colour makes it very bold and eye-catching

http://www.shopstyleceleb.com/2011/02/jennifer-lopez-at-the-2011-grammy-awards-february-13-2011/

 Christain Louboutin loves to let his imagination run wild. He once designed a range of shoes with transparent Lucite heels, in which flower petals or other objects are seen floating. For a special customer, a French film star, Arielle Dombasle, sealed love letters from her philosopher husband within the plastic heels, as well as a lock of his hair, and a quill. She says, “His shoes are unique, each one is like a jewel.”

Louboutin has many plans for the future, including a perfume line. Famous celebrities that wear his shoes include Elizabeth Taylor, Princess Caroline of Monaco, Catherine Deneuve, Angelina Jolie, Cher and many, many more.

The relevance of his work to our practice that I can think of would be the embellishments of the shoes, the fact of keeping in mind how your design would fit and compliment the body. Both shoes and jewellery makes you feel good when you wear it, it completes an outfit. In his design concepts, he tries to break barriers, thinking of new ways and styles of shoes, the same way that we try to discover newer, more innovative and daring ways and designs for jewellery, thinking beyond of what we know, and are used to. This I what I love about his work, he takes into concideration of what the consumer would love and feel great in, and combines that with current trends, at the same time being daringly different. His shoes range from being bright, flamboyant and edgy to classy and subtle.

This style is very classy and elegant, what he did with the ribbon adds volume and gives it a feminine feel. I really love the neautral colour with the bold red peeping here and there, its a beautiful contrast. Once again it attracts attention to the back of the shoes, and the heel, its so different.

http://www.shoes2k.com/tag/christian-louboutin

He has a range of styles from classic and elegant, to daringly bold and edgy, his shoes are truly art.

http://www.passport2fabulous.com/2010/08/christian-louboutin/

This is quite a funky champagne flute that was inspired by Christian Louboutin designs, its exaggerated a bit how the shoe has been elongated representing the elegance in his designs. 

Bibliography:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_Louboutin

http://www.fashionmodeldirectory.com/designers/christian-louboutin/
http://www.christianlouboutin.com

                 -Marilyn Monroe

ITC


I think that the Infecting The City festival was well publicised with the posters on the lamp posts and people handing out flyers and maps. It was a great feature to have musical performances helping to attract people's attention and add a little spice to the fest. I love how they turned a public area into something more decorative and interesting making commuters lives a little bit more colourful. 

This is a pretty modern couch. It looks very futuristic, having that feel of minimilism. I feel like it is a very bold and striking couch, but yet in a room it could almost look invisible. I like the way that the wiring flows  around the object, it looks almost like some sort of computerised design. Dont know if it will be very comfortable tho. Not really a good choice for people who like their homes to look warm and cosy, I would say that this piece of furniture is for someone very modern, thats likes their homes to have clean lines and bold structures.

This is an interesting way to look at furniture, using a suitcase as a chair. Its a great innovate design, it is bold and eye-catching, it has a lovely vintage feel, taking recycling to another level. It makes me think of "old-country" almost like "farm town". It has a bit of a southern feel because of that old portrait painted in the middle.

This is a beautiful Boodles neck piece. I love it because it is elegant and delicate, I think it would absolutely make a statement and complete an outfit. It has got a lovely flow to it leading your eye down to the main featured stone, I also feel like it has a light whimsical feel to it. Very classy. Timeless design.

This is an interestingly new way of designing watches, going from the ordinary faces to something way more funky and innovative. The way that they have designed the way the watch tells the time, cleverly slots into the total face feature. It is a very classy, blingy yet bold design, with a mechanical hint.