03 Nov 2014

A three-day Botswana culture and design week that was expected to bring together 20 participants from 16 countries has been postponed due to the outbreak of Ebola in West Africa.

An official of Miss Jean Model, Naledi Charles confirmed the postponement in an interview. The event was scheduled for October 31 to November 2 in Gaborone. “We are still awaiting the sponsors’ response as to when the show will be hosted,” she said.

Meanwhile, Charles stated that Botswana remained one of the few countries in Africa that had been able to maintain and uphold its rich traditional and cultural heritage.

In line with this, Miss Jean Model was expected to partner with award winning BlackNBold Fashion house (a UK/Nigeria based Fashion Company to host the first ever major culture and fashion week in Botswana, which was expected to showcase fashion by mixing African culture, fashion, style and music.

Its target was on local and international established and emerging designers who are to showcase their various designs and creativity. The three-day event had categories: fashion designers, handcrafts, beads & accessories designers, shoe designers, poets, cultural artists and cultural food expo.

BlackNBold fashion house is commonly known as the biggest organisers of student fashion week in Africa, Nigerian student fashion and design week and also the coordinators of Africa Fashion Week London.

Kgomotso Nyatshane who is the founder of Miss Jean Model said their company has founded Miss World Tourism Botswana pageant which crowned the well-known Queen Motlamma Sesinyi who represented Botswana at Big Brother the chase reality show 2014 and also the organisers/coordinators of BOCCIM trade fair fashion shows and promoters of annual wellness activities with Botswana Coalition of HIV and AIDS.

She said Botswana community represents the largest percentage of most business brands’ target, as such, this event was expected to bring together over 20 designers from Botswana, Equatorial Guinea, Nigeria, Gabon, Cameroon, Ghana, South Africa, France, UK, USA, Spain, Mozambique, Tanzania, Zambia, Indonesia and India and 10 local student designers, 30 models from Botswana during the fashion week.

“This will be a unique platform for sponsors to fully get their brands awareness across to their target audience” she said.

She said their aim is to contribute to the growth of the fashion and cultural sector of Botswana by showcasing creativity and originality of Batswana to the rest of the world and also celebrating and promoting local makes in Africa by Africans.

The official opening was to be done by His Excellency Lieutenant Ian Khama Seretse Khama and international guest was to be the Minister of Tourism of Equatorial Guinea and the executive director of Spain-US chamber of Commerce in America, Bokoko. ENDS