This year marks the third year of the Cape Town Fashion Festival, and it's bigger and better than ever. The Cape Town Fashion Festival takes place between 19 - 28 November.

The Western Cape fashion manufacturing industry (clothing, textiles and footwear) employs in excess of 85 000 people in the province, and is by far the largest employer of labour in manufacturing, and well-positioned to grow and expand in future years.

The festival is part of branding the city as a fashion capital, and the key objectives of the Cape Town Fashion Festival are:

• Celebrate the fashion industry, and showcase its inherent strengths
• To raise consumer awareness on the opportunities to buy local, and encourage a uniquely South African look
• To foster design and fashion innovation and encourage young designers
• To support the local clothing and textile industry
• To create and maintain quality jobs in the Western Cape region and 'keep jobs in fashion'
• To create a platform for industry role-players to discuss hot issues and establish fashion as a vibrant attraction of the city.

This festival will provide a forum for a practical reflection on the policy framework for industry development. It will situate itself in a wider repositioning of Cape Town as 'the lifestyle city'.

It is anticipated that the event will showcase industrial performance, while also celebrating the industry's promising creative resources and highlighting challenges facing the fashion sector, the needs of this sector and the steps all role players can take to build and grow the industry.

The city boasts a superb environmental and historical heritage and infrastructure combined with the renowned friendliness of the locals and an identity as a hub of creative individuals (including fashion designers). It remains a major and ever-growing tourist draw card.

The Cape Town Fashion Festival distinguishes itself from other fashion shows and fashion weeks in a number of ways: it promotes only local products, has a strong focus on fashion manufacturing in addition to design, draws tens of thousands of participants through its link with workers in the industry, and the event has succeeded in drawing in all stakeholders from sectors of industry, retail, labour, government, designers, and the media. An initiative of the Southern African Clothing and Textile Workers' Union (SACTWU), it aims to create a network of activities that promote local content and local industry.

Event details:

Date: 19 - 27 November 2005

Venue: Various in Cape Town

Phone: 021 447 4570

Web site: www.capetownfashionfestival.co.za

E-mail: satsawc@iafrica.com

This Cape Town Fashion Festival celebrates and showcases the excellence of South African fashion, design and textiles.