Wear Only ZA

With fashionistas queuing up at Cape Town Fashion Week to be featured on their website, WOZA is a brilliant new campaign to showcase and support the incredible design available on our own shores.

Considering that 80,000 jobs have been lost in South Africa’s clothing and textile industry since 2004, we say “Hooray! It’s about time!”

At a launch breakfast held at Cape Town’s Birds Boutique Cafe this week, the team behind WOZA explained the concept and their passion for supporting local design.

Stage one is a website: a slick and beautifully designed platform with a Sartorialist slant. Style-savvy individuals are photographed wearing locally designed items. Their pics are then uploaded onto the WOZA gallery. Join the movement with just an email address, and you can send in your own pics to be featured too.

“When we started the movement, we wondered who was wearing South African design and how they felt about it,” says WOZA’s Sylvia Gruber. “The more we looked, the more we found a community of fashion-conscious buyers who were wearing South African design.”

Recognising SA fashion

The next step will be to co-brand tags on clothing items in store, so that savvy customers can instantly recognise fashion that’s designed and made in South Africa, and which supports local industry.

WOZA will also use spaza-style pop-up shops to showcase the work of certain local designers. The ultimate goal is to have WOZA floor space set aside in retail stores, so that customers can more easily shop responsibly.  

Designers can also join up online and have their brands endorsed by WOZA, increasing their exposure nationwide.  

The brainchild of the Cape Town Fashion Council, WOZA is funded by Provincial Government – the Department of Economic Development and Tourism in the Western Cape, more specifically.

Speaking at the launch, Dr Laurine Platzky reiterated the support of local government for the campaign, encouraging guests to spread the initiative to the rest of the country. “The ultimate aim is job creation, improving the quality of life in Cape Town, the Western Cape and the rest of the country.”

Through these clever initiatives, WOZA aims to stimulate greater demand for buying Made in South Africa brands, whether high-end designer labels or a T-shirt at your local clothing chain. Wear Only ZA – we like it. A lot.

Visit www.wearonlyza.com or check out the “WOZA wearonlyza” page on Facebook.