DIGITAL ISSUE | Introducing Wanted's Summer Fashion Issue

Ed's Note | A summer fling with fashion

It is late September and my early-evening flight from East London to Joburg takes off through a turbulent, chilly shower and lands in what is a 28-degree night in a Joburg teeming with after-hours events and willing guestlists.

The summer events season, preceded by an arts blitz in September, starts like this, and doesn’t relent till well into May. Many of these gatherings have, at the very least, a fashion subtext, the music is louder — and that has only a little bit to do with volume — necklines surrender to gravity, and hemlines move in an opposite direction to the predominant moral compass. As we introduce summer 2022/23 and explore some paradoxical places, we clash our polka dots with stripes, if you will.

You may recall from sometime last year that I balance my love for fashion with a healthy sense of humour — and cynicism. You’ll see that Rob Rose — editor of the Financial Mail and an admitted fashion “piss taker” — has plenty of the latter, as he meticulously breaks down how, 21 years later, the film Zoolander has proven an uncanny predictor of contemporary fashion farce. In contrast, fashion-industry consultant Errica Iacopini’s analysis, straight from the shows and a European summer, unfurls the great adjustment in a post-isolation fashion world wrestling with conflict, identity, heritage, and sustainability.

In their latest profile for us, artist and writer Sandiso Ngubane speaks to Frederica Brooksworth of the Council for International African Fashion Education — a non-profit organisation advancing “the development and innovation of fashion education and research on the continent and in the diaspora” — on the ongoing documentation of and education about the African fashion canon. In stylish conclusion, our fashion spread is not only a feat of beauty but also a miracle of logistics.

A big thank you to fashion director Sharon Armstrong, photographer Aart Verrips, and the rest of the team for the extra push on this one. We love it in all its light, romantic, understated, sultry, summery charm. That’s what we hope this season will be for you — easy, unrushed, and dreamy.