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Today, 10 July 2009

> Bottled water ban

> White farmers to be spared

> Second chance for Carl?

Yesterday, 09 July 2009

> 'We will strike until 2011'

> Black Anglo chairman?

> Mob breaks robber's legs

> New charges for Malema?

> White farmers to be spared

The lights go down, the music turns up and there's a nervous flutter of excitement that moves through the crowd of young, eager fashion students and their talent spotters.

It's the opening show of Nokia Cape Town Fashion Week and the anticipation is as palpable as the puffy heels of the uber-high pale pink sandals of the girl next to me. In front of me, a chic young male graduate taps the steel toes of his high-heeled black boots restlessly.

I am two rows back and can almost touch the models' feet.

Everyone's talking about Maria Pereira, Aneesa Ismail, Curlon Peters – you don't know these names now, but remember them; they are the stars of the future. Barnard's jacket dresses come out of some chic Japanese sci-fi romance. The guy in the boots in front of me is nodding in appreciation.

Booley's corsets, bustles and waistcoats make me think of opulent nights in palaces of champagne and light.

Treurnich's taken her military upbringing and turned it into fashion – who said women aren't sexy in uniform?

The Nokia Cape Town Fashion Week kicked off yesterday, fittingly, by showcasing the best in up-and-coming talent from Young Designers Emporium and the Haute Couture School of Fashion.

The clothing was bold. The audience was young and beautiful, everyone looking out for the next bright star (which may have explained the plethora of sunglasses on show), everyone exuding Cape Town cool as only the young know how.

That night the Armilla Jewellery collections wowed the audience, as did Amanda Laird Cherry — real South African fashion made real good, which she says was inspired by the catharsis of going back and reliving the past in a new way. So proud. So South African.

Which is no wonder with this year's theme being African Renaissance, embodied of course by two models that took centre stage this year: Botswana beauty Kaone Kario (Nokia's Face of Africa winner) and the gorgeous French-Senegalese model known only by "Dji".

Sun Godd'ess provided ample African-inspired hippy chic — Gwyneth Paltrow would have approved — while Craig Jacobs and Jenni Button added extra class to an already classy evening.

Today more big names wills strut the catwalk: Maya Prass, Gert van der Merwe and the chains, Habits and Aca Joe — all putting in their print on the African tapestry.

And this time I want a front row seat.

For a more detailed show schedule, see the Cape Town Fashion Week website.