VIVIERS Debut in South Africa Fashion Week FW23 Collection

VIVIERS debuts in South Africa Fashion Week official calendar next to Federico Cina to present the South African release of its FW23 KARROO-LAND OF THIRSTS

South African designer, Lezanne Viviers, debuts in South Africa Fashion Week official calendar next to Federico Cina to present the South African release of her FW23 KARROO-LAND OF THIRSTS within FASHION BRIDGES a joint initiative by Polimoda, CNMI and SAFW.

South African fashion label, VIVIERS, who just debuted last February in Milan to present its Fall/Winter 2023 collection with a presentation within Milan Fashion Week’s official calendar, will join South African Fashion Week’s official calendar.

On April the 21st, at 19:30 CET the brand will hold its first runway show in Johannesburg within SAFW’s calendar, next to Italian designer Federico Cina as part of FASHION BRIDGES, an initiative in support young talents resulted from the collaboration between the Italian embassy, Polimoda Firenze, Camera Nazionale della Moda Italiana and South African Fashion Week.

The event will be broadcasted live on IG @viviers.studio. At its third edition, Fashion Bridges – I Ponti della Moda, launched in 2021 with the objective to establish the foundations for a long term sustainable, inclusive and strategic cooperation between Italian and South African fashion industries, has selected Viviers and Federico Cina for an exchange programme which included a dedicated and tailored mentorship by POLIMODA and the opportunity of showcasing within the institutional setting of South Africa Fashion Week. All the designers showing collections at South African Fashion Week this season, including Viviers and Federico Cina, indeed will also meet fashion institutes, trade associations, media and companies to exchange experiences, knowledge and creative styles.

“Our debut at SA Fashion week, as part of The Fashion Bridges, a Polimoda and CNMI exchange program, has been a life changing experience. The mentorship with Polimoda, the runway opportunity to showcase our collection in a new light, as well as the generosity of the Italian Embassy, has opened a world of new opportunities for VIVIERS” said Lezanne Viviers, creative director of Viviers.

“Regional and intercontinental collaborations such as these, allow all parties to knit networks of beneficial mutual support. They allow us to share skills and insights, open unexplored business opportunities, and ultimately, to extend the sphere of our respective creative visions to beyond our familiar borders,” says SAFW’s director Lucilla Booyzen.

For its South African release of KAROO-LAND OF THIRSTS – Viviers FW23 collection, Viviers has restyled the collection to be stronger, sharper and more sculptural. New sharply tailored looks have been designed to emphasise the brand’s focus on form and architecture. The South African edit will also feature Viviers’s first 3D printed shoe style and conceptual jewellery capsule designed to complete the runway styling.

KAROO-LAND OF THIRSTS South Africa release will also feature a strong terracotta hue, as well as a solid warm winter white pantone in direct contrast with a strong and sculptural black pop. These solid color elements were included, as they emphasise the designer’s penchant for precise tailoring and sculpture, but also to better convey the brand’s African heritage.

Brand & Designer Profile

Lezanne Viviers is a Johannesburg-based fashion designer and the founder and creative director of VIVIERS, a sustainable, handcrafted clothing brand. Before founding the brand in 2019. Viviers matriculated from PJ Oliver Art School in Stellenbosch, where she majored in sculpture.

After graduating from the Elizabeth Galloway Academy of Fashion Design in 2010, she worked with iconic South African fashion designer Marianne Fassler, becoming creative director for the brand from 2015-2018.

Born in Cape Town, Lezanne exchanged the natural splendour of the Cape, for the cultural melting pot of Johannesburg, the city of Gold. where she moved in 2011.

“In my attempt to understand my own identity as a white, South African women, I began to use fashion, as well as beauty as the language of activism, in order to further explore not only my identity, but how we as humans could co-exist and interact through the language of love and unity as our primary source of communication. Creatively I nourish myself with just about anything; I continuously re-discover beauty through the senses, often recognizing it in articles considered mundane, like the recyclers ’trolleys on the streets of Johannesburg”.

Creativity is an extrasensory awareness of just being. Being who you are, where you are, with whomever you are and trying to understand yourself better, through your creative experiments.

Curiosity feeds creativity and that lead to me starting VIVIERS. As a collector of rare, unusual and often unconventionally beautiful things and art, Lezanne believes clothing is a means of expressing innermost desires of the self.

VIVIERS celebrates how an individual stands within this diverse conversation. VIVIERS is more than clothing, it symbolises a community that challenges the norms, by attempting to answer questions that perhaps still need to be asked.

The vision of the brand isto bridge between communitiesthatsee themselves as mutually exclusive, by creating a manifesto where narratives meet in the raw form of the arts. VIVIERS facilitates an umbrella-like platform, where through the arts, for artisanal collaboration and architecture, creatives can challenge institutional norms through clothing.

VIVIERS focuses on a sensual experience. Established in paradoxes; the boyish girlishness of the collections’ pieces could be both sophisticated, yet simultaneously rebellious, hard yet soft, organic yet synthetic. The garments are constructed from rare and unusual textiles that make up seamlessly imperfect garments, that Lezanne strive to cut to perfection.

The designer is inspired by a Japanese sensibility and how it trans-migrates, through interpretation, in an African context. Shokunin in Japan means craftsmanship; however, it exceeds the mere fact that something is made by hand. It implies that something is made joyously, considerately, beautifully, but made to the utmost of your capability. This sensibility is shared in ancient African beliefs.

Spiritually and materially, Shokunin or craftsmanship is an approach with a social consciousness, which to Lezanne blurs the line of arts and crafts. An artis(an) vs an artis(t). Ubuntu has the same meaning in South Africa.

Since its outsets VIVIERS has created a name for itself receiving accolades in the sustainable fashion world as well as local and international features and press recognition.

AWARDS

2022 INNOVATIVE DESIGN AND MATERIALS 2021 TWYG SUSTAINABILITY AWARDS 2020 FINALIST

2022 NICHOLAS COUTTS CRAFTSMAN AWARD 2021 TWYG SUSTAINABILITY AWARDS 2020 FINALIST

2020 GLAMOURS MOST GLAMOROUS – THE CHANGE MAKER’S EDITION GLAMOUR MAGAZINE

2020 RISING LIGHT MBOKODO AWARDS

INNOVATIVE STYLE AWARDS STYLE MAGAZINE