Since she made it to the finals of the Mnet Face of Africa last year, Basima says she has been involved in promotional shows here, especially music shows. She says although she has not been making headlines as one of the few women promoters around, her company has been hosting "a good number of successful shows" particularly in Gaborone. She told Showbiz at the fashion event held at the Club Ozone in Tlokweng that her involvement in fashion shows is intended to expose local clothing brands to the consumers.
The Ozone fashion show, featured clothes from local brands, Odipeka, Podi, Achivas as well as fashion shops, Foschini and Truworths. Basima said although they were happy with the number of participating brands in the show, much work still remains to be done to convince other fashion outlets to support such promotional events. She revealed that other potential participants mainly South African chain stores referred them to their South African headquarters when approached about the idea.
Despite the event starting well beyond the scheduled 730pm, Basima and her partner Kabelo Tladi took comfort in the fact that the fashion show eventually came to being, although the attendance was just fair as cold temperatures kept people away. Basima's first fashion show was also spoiled by the absence of musicians who had been programmed to perform. Even Scar, the rapper who owns the clothing label Podi, failed to pitch up.
The Ramco Loco rapper was scheduled to perform along side another Ramco Loco rapper, Kast, and P-Mag, but never turned up after promising organisers that they were on their way to the show. A Scar's track was played when it was the rapper's clothing label's turn to be seen. Scar's label paraded mainly casual wear like t-shirt, golf shirts, and jeans. Odipeka paraded warm clothes such as jackets. Fashion shops Foschini and Truworths had much to parade on the evening.
Though disappointed that a number of things went wrong in the evening, Basima and Tladi have vowed to make fashion shows a regular feature. " We will be staging the next one as soon as possible," said Tladi. However, promoters concur that convincing potential sponsors to set aside part funds for an event like a fashion show was not easy because such events are rare on the local entertainment scene. Having realised success in the area of music promotion, the duo believe that it is a matter of time before the public starts looking forward to fashion shows, just like they do about music.
For Basima, who developed the passion for fashion shows and modelling thanks to her experiences in the Mnet Face of Africa show last year, promoting fashion is one way of fulfilling her modelling dreams. While in the Mnet show Basima had a first hand experience of how modelling and fashion shows can be big business for the models, clothing brands, and promoters alike.
