Whilst on a road trip of the fashion design departments at colleges across South Africa, I was really shocked at how few of the students had heard of South African designers. I then began asking around amongst friends and connections not in the fashion industry and discovered that many South Africans in fact have very little knowledge of local designers.
For me this is a travesty as we have world class design talent in this country, however for most small to medium businesses PR is prohibitively expensive and so the designers are out there on their own doing everything themselves from designing to marketing, managing staff and businesses and dealing with buyers.
Out of this realization I have founded TALK SHOP, as an affordable service for creative business owners to have the support that they need to get their name out there and create relevant brand awareness which will translate into an increase in demand and sales”