Not Julius Malema's Youth League

[slideshow]
I’ve blogged before (at my old blog address) about the Johannesburg fashion movement, The Smarteez. (More exclusive than the mass outlet Amakipkip.)

Now Dazed Magazine have discovered them. For its June special “South Africa” issue (Africans still get “special issue” status everywhere), the magazine’s editors sent a writer and photographer to profile the designers.

The piece is not online, but a slideshow and a video. On the Dazed blog, writer Rod Stanley has a quote from one of the designers explaining how he feels his generation differs from their older cousins and neighbors: ‘… Too young to really remember the struggle for apartheid, they’re less politicised and claim that their “struggle” is now one against blandness and conformity – to them, it’s all about partying, self-expression and challenging stereotypes.’  I don’t think they care for Julius Malema.

Photographer Chris Saunders, who has been documenting the Smarteez for a while now, took the pictures.

There’s also a short film about the Smarteez on the Dazed website.

Sean Jacobs

Via Style Bubble. [h/t Nerina Penzhorn]

Further Reading

Davido’s jacket

Davido’s appearance at ‘Amapiano’s biggest concert’ turned a night of celebration into a study in Afrophobia, fandom, and the fragile borders of South African cultural nationalism.

Empty riddles

Drawing on his forced migration from Rwanda, Serge Alain Nitegeka reflects on the forms, fragments, and unsettled histories behind his latest exhibition in Johannesburg.