Onesimo Bam on Langa streets

On Sunday 26 October along with a cast of creatives, Onesimo Bam presented his new 10-piece collection creating an unforgettable cultural moment. “We took the collection to the streets where anyone could watch it for free,” he says.

This generous collection – generous in ideas and inclusivity – coincided with Open Langa an initiative built “on the global movement of Open Streets that started in Bogotá and continues to transform cities around the world.” For the day, King Langalibalele Drive and Lerotholi Avenue were closed to traffic and opened for the community to enjoy. Onesimo says, “I thought it was a perfect place for avant-garde fashion. We do so many things in the inner-city and sometimes forget where we come from and don’t show what we do to the people who inspire us.”

Onesimo says, “I love that it was so loose and so free. There wasn’t much fuss about it. At 3pm people came to experience fashion and then we had an after party in the street.”

The ideas explored in Progression IV are a continuation of the ideas Onesimo was thinking about earlier this year in Progression III. “Clothing is shaped by the body, not the other way round. Clothes are cocoons and they drape on bodies. Mine is one-size fashion that fits differently on different bodies.”

In her notes for the collection, Design Week South Africa’s Simone Schutz writes that Onesimo questions the architecture of fashion and explores notions of undoing and uncovering. “What is a garment? Who is a model? What is a runway? The street becomes the runway. The runway becomes the street.”

Onesimo “collapses the boundary between performance and everyday life, questioning who gets to occupy the platform and who decides what fashion looks like and who belongs in the frame.”

For materials, Onesimo uses natural fabrics, and fabrics that he has collected. “I like playing with fabrics that can take a shape, like leather. I like that you can put fashion on a body and that it will take a shape.”

Simone says that Onesimo’s visual language of exposed seams turns construction inside out to reveal the labour, the processes and the hands that shaped each piece. “These are not imperfections but declarations, the threads that bind us, the memories within the cloth, made visible.”

While Onesimo cuts his fabric, he has his garments stitched by a manufacturer in Salt River, Cape Town. He hand-painted wool suiting for one of the looks.

The cast of art practitioners was integral to the performance. Show producer Tandekile Mkize says, “Onesimo is incredibly generous in how he invites us into his vision and creates a space where collaboration feels organic and open. Producing Progression IV went beyond coordinating a fashion show, it became a shared act of creation, connecting performance, people and place.”

Each collaborator “embodies the fluidity of this continuum and reveals how identity, history, and imagination are woven into future making,” says Tandekile.

“I’m very excited about the work we do and moving away from the cookie cutter runway format and transforming streets, public space and everyday moments into sites of performance.”

Creative Director: Onesimo Bam

Images: Andile Buka

Producer: Tandekile Mkize

Production Design: Amanda Msimang

Perfomers: Uno July and Ntando Ngcume

Powered by V&A Watershed, Design Week South Africa, 16 On Lerotholi and Young Urbanist

Wine sponsor: Lubanzi Wines