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Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week - a peek at David Tlale's The Intern

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STAND OUT ‘I’m all about a confident woman,’ says Siphosihle Masango PHOTOS: Siphosihle Masango
STAND OUT ‘I’m all about a confident woman,’ says Siphosihle Masango PHOTOS: Siphosihle Masango

Fashion designer David Tlale’s 26-year-old intern Siphosihle Masango showcased his last collection under The Intern by David Tlale umbrella at the Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week Cape Town. Speaking to City Press ahead of his show, the Pretorian designer said he thought many would be surprised by his latest collection as he’s moved away from dainty and more regal evening wear to something much edgier. “The inspiration behind my latest collection is youth – youthful fun, edginess and street style. I’m inspired by the vibrancy of young people living in the city, and this is actually the first time I’m tackling street style, as well as the first time that I’m using denim and velour.”

Masango says this collection is all about bomber jackets and bomber sleeves, taking an elegant evening gown and adding bomber sleeves to it – mixing the elegance of nightwear with streetwear.

“It’s about an attitude more than anything else. I tried to capture the attitude of the current cosmopolitan woman in South Africa, the current Cosmopolitan man in South Africa – the young twentysomething that’s of a worldly opinion.”

Masango, who has been working in the industry for seven years, studied fashion design at the University of Johannesburg.

“I became a David Tlale intern in November 2015 when my mom encouraged me to apply for the internship after she saw David talk about it on SABC2’s Morning Live.”

Some of his favourite designers include Jean Paul Gaultier, Alexander McQueen, Moschino, Black Coffee and, of course, David Tlale. Masango says Los Angeles designer Jeremy Scott’s work gives him life and is a big inspiration behind his AW17 collection. “There’s a huge Jeremy Scott influence in these designs. I’ve always wanted to design clothes that I can wear on the weekend, I can be cool at Neighbourgoods Market in, I can be cool at Great Dane in – it has a very youthful Joburg feel to it.”

He says that he wanted to learn tailoring during this internship, learn about the movement of certain evening wear, something he thinks he has mastered and can be seen in his previous collections. “Of late I wanted to conquer daywear; I wanted to conquer ready-to-wear clothes, also creating an edgier street style – those have been the challenges I have faced creating this new collection. When you’re doing evening wear, you line everything, whereas with street style using a fabric like denim, you don’t. The finishing and techniques that I have had to learn with street style have been part of the challenges that I have gone through with this current collection.”

About life after the internship, he says: “There’s still so much I need to learn to have a successful brand. My past mistakes were that I wanted to do it all by myself, but I have learnt that you need an accountant, you need a marketing person, you need seamstresses and, as a designer, you need to focus on designs. I still need to learn a lot about the business behind fashion, so another internship would be great.”

. His collection can be bought via his Instagram and Twitter accounts at @sihle_snow

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