15 Mar Fashion designer Taku Dlamini drops gorgeously empowering visual series

Shot at a striking location in Brixton, Joburg, fashion design Taku Dlamini’s latest collection has a strong feminist undercurrent and serves to create more awareness of the broad spectrum of beauty and femininity.

The empowering Woman is a Word draws inspiration from the 70s, a time when female artists were slowly reclaiming their power in the areas of photography and performance art, according to Taku.

While creating this collection, the recent Lisof graduate, Taku — who was one of 10and5’s top graduates for 2017 — wanted to adopt the concept of women investigating and challenging visual representations of themselves, as they did during the 1970s, and bring that into the realm of fashion.

“My aim is to redefine and subvert societal views around being a woman and notions of femininity and masculinity, and how they interact with one another, to offer a new version of femininity, while simultaneously celebrating women through the fusion of fashion and art.”

The lookbook, shot by Lebogang Tlhako and featuring creative women, such as artist Natalie Paneng, showcases a marriage of traditionally “feminine” colours, such as charged pink, soft candy pink and optic white with traditionally “masculine” colours, such as midnight blue and black.

The silhouettes featured in the collection are predominantly non-constricting and nonchalant. Proportions are awkward and exaggerated. With the help of Karolina Koryl, Taku also incorporated illustrations, which have either been printed or embroidered onto some of the pieces. This feature brings something a little off beat, which adds to the visual impact of the collection.