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Design team Jacques van der Watt and Daniça Lepen of Black Coffee walked away with top honours in the 2009 Mercedes-Benz Award for South African Fashion Design. Starting from the theme of “Modern South Africa”, the pair reinterpreted traditional dress with a contemporary twist. Drawing inspiration from children wrapped onto African mothers’ backs, as well as African hairstyles and the nomadic Himba tribe of Namibia, the head-to-toe clay-coloured spandex gives the source material an uncompromisingly modern twist.
Here's an excerpt from the SOUTH documentary, in which Van der Watt talks about their design-it-yourself dress.
