When you have a reasonably short attention span, creating a sustainable business making sustainable garments, seems like an implausible incongruity — one that is unlikely to succeed.

And yet, not only is the homegrown Fundudzi label just coming off a successful summer collection at Arise Africa Fashion Week, a show-stopping fashion outing to the Durban July this past weekend, and the launch of a fledgling men's wear range, but it is also firmly committed to job security and environmental awareness through everything it produces — in the current economic climate.

Another perceived inconsistency is that this label is owned by journalist and Sunday Times gossip columnist, Craig Jacobs, a man who has strong opinions on the clothes worn by the good and the great, the garrulous and the taciturn of the local party circuit, a man who creates events for a living, alongside his fashion label and his social commentary.

A jack of many trades

Fashion designer, TV style reporter, social columnist, events organiser, some-time thespian, eco-warrior, shopping guide and news journalist, Craig Jacobs is a jack of many trades and, more than anything, a passionate opinion-shifter in a world that is often perceived as shallow and superficial.

More than the value of the individual activities and business undertakings that Craig is occupied by, he is able to use his voice collectively across all of these pursuits, to raise awareness of the environmental impact of our consumerist behaviour, as well as practically demonstrate how it can be done differently and with respect for our natural resources, specifically here in Africa.

And with an incisive voice and eagle eye that misses nothing on the social calendar, Craig has taken his awareness campaign right to the top of the social, political and economic enclaves into which he has been invited and entertained.

Frenetic juxtapositions aside, Craig is just a boy from Belhar on the Cape Flats. He grew up with a welder for a dad and a mom that was a housekeeper until the family moved to Australia in the height of the apartheid years, when she was forced to clean other people’s homes to help support the family.

Craig and his brother used to help their mom out when they could and this inadvertently led to Craig's return to South Africa in 1998, on a three-month placing at 'The Sunday Times', secured by one of the owners of the houses he used to help clean.

'The Sunday Times' placing became more permanent and a full-time move to Johannesburg was the result. But the journey from Sydney to Joburg came, in true Craig style, via some acting in the ubiquitous Aussie soaps, some radio work, cover stories on M-People and Savage Garden for emerging magazine Cream, a well-honed desire to graduate to political journalism before realising that Nirvana was more likely to change the world than the politicians and eventually to the Sydney Morning Herald.

Realised his true calling

And although this process of expressing himself through creative channels really began when he was just 12 years old — when he scripted a play about the Black Death, articulated through the medium of mime to an ABBA soundtrack (ironically 'The Winner Takes It All') — Craig only really realised his true calling when he interviewed fashion designer Akira Isagowa in 1995, who already spoke of global warming and how fashion can impact on it, androgyny and trans-seasonal dressing.

Craig brought all of this thinking back to South Africa, and about four years later began to put it all together as he reconsidered his life, his identity and his burning desire to engage from the outside in, rather than the reverse.

It was then that he left his job at 'YOU/Huisgenoot' where he had been for the year since he left 'The Sunday Times'. Spurred on by local fashion maverick, Gavin Rajah, and US motivational speaker Dr Earl Suttle (husband of Felicia Mabuza-Suttle), Craig founded his Fundudzi fashion label and debuted his first collection at fashion week a year later.

With his overwhelming passion enabling the creation of a fashion business that is self-sustainable — and one that respects and responds to the sustainability of the planet — Craig has achieved more than anyone thought possible.

He still gets to tap into his drama-school background in the staging of his shows and events, and he gets to write and comment on social and fashion related issues in his journalistic pursuits. But they are all linked by the common social consciousness and realisation of the power of communication that he brings to them.

In industries dominated by self-aggrandisement and the power of the pretty, Craig challenges the norms and pokes holes in the accepted wisdom. He puts others (and the planet) before his own convenience and looks at how his actions impact on those around him. He has come to the power of a voice and a presence that can truly change the world and he is using his power for good. Who said that fashion was just about lovely clothes?

For more information on Robyn and other stories of fashion, go to: http://styleguidecapetown.blogspot.com

Levelling the playing fields The South African soccer field has traditionally been a male bastion but we are moving forward.

Hottest six-pack in SA? Who does the hottest six-pack in South Africa belong to? Read this to find out...

'The woman on p194' What do you think of the appearance in a fashion magazine of a model who fills more of the page?