Thandile Sunduza designer speaks

It was a wardrobe disaster that made Thandile ­Babalwa Sunduza the talk of the red carpet and the country ahead of President Jacob Zuma’s state of the nation address. And now the class are out. After social media went crazy last week, attacking Thandile Sunduza and her yellow SONA dress, the designer, Mihlali Gqada has spoken out via her Facebook.

Here’s her response:

After going back and forth on wether to or not address what I deem Fashion Suicide by Ms Sunduza at the SONA last nite alas here I am, and this mite I add will be my only comment on this subject…

I am a well rounded designer and stylist for plump women whom I refer to as iziDudla. My label as launched 4 years ago has graced a number of Red Carpets, Magazines, Newspapers and a myriad of Social Media sites!!!I myself exclusively wear MY designs and have grown a brand unanimous with Sassy, Cheeky, Classy and all round fabulous and this I say with a clear conscious quoting texts from many published sentiments of my large clientele, fans, followers and friends…

Ms Sunduza requested me to design her a garment for the SONA and upon consultation she had her own idea and a clear indication of what she wanted, infact she wanted me to go and see a dress from a store she liked and make it, I refused because I respect my craft and I do not dummy copy other designers work, I can use them as inspiration BUT not copy as an ethic I work with…

The dress I made for Ms Sunduza is NOT the dress she wore at the SONA, I repeat for the indulgence of those who seek this clarity and those that have read her FB post which I am not privy too as we are NOT friends on FB, we HAD a client designer relationship!!!
A dress was courioued to CPT and there are people who can attest to the fact that what she wore last nite was NOT the dress sent to her !!! The dress sent was lime off shoulder NOT a boob cube as she wore and it had a lace overlay/droppings which was appropriate for her current state (pregnancy)!!!

What Ms Sunduza wore was the under garment of the dress sent to her, so she unanimously with NO consultation with me went and got the dress reDONE by people I do not know without my knowledge which is her prerogative as that petticoat she ended up wearing as a dress was exactly that the under garment of the dress and again i say this THERE is proof to all of this as the dress was seen by even those who I asked to drop it at the airport!!!The top part of the dress worn by Ms Sunduza I too have never laid eyes on and it was only after close speculation that I realized that she wore the petticoat as a dress and did something with the top part that I dnt know!!!

Till NOW I have NOT been consulted by her nor has she explained what she did to the S’dudla Couture dress I sent her and that is non of my business as what my clients do with their garments is not my business!!!

I respect my clients and am always willing to listen and give them a life changing experience with my designs. I am NOT perfect but you do not leave my studio with a long face or disappointed!!!My staff and I make sure of that at ALL times!!!

In conclusion Ms Sunduza must NOT LIE in such platforms and claim that disaster she wore was my design, as she wore the petticoat of the actual dress delivered to her and did something with the top I too have never seen nor understand!!!

In fact as she jirated on the Red Carpet laughing and chasing cameras she did NOT once when asked the designer mention my name she went on about her shoes and Drs orders etc, I was glued on to the screen…She did not at any time call me and say the dress was not fit for her and had she done so with the Original Dress not the disaster she wore I would have respectfully asked her NOT to wear it, send it back and I would rework the dress until it suited her needs!!!in my line of work we consult I design your look, you pay and I make the garment then you fit after which you decide if the dress is perfect and we work on it for delivery!!!And in the event you are not happy we remake the dress and you never take a garment you do not like or feel is a reflection of what you had initially asked for!!!

For the record I made dresses for the SONA as I have done in years before and my clients looked outstanding and where more than happy with my work!!!

In future when soliciting services of an expect or respectable service provider or designer in my case WEAR what I made and NOT an imagined frock, had that been the case the woman at hand would have made social pages and NOT worst dressed!!!

The Truth can Not be manufactured at the will of people who when at the centerfold of disaster want to cry fawl and redirect anarchy to ME hay’khona NOT on my clock!!!

I will continue to ROCk fab outfits and style my people with honor and dignity…In the meanwhile the worst dressed must take the fall for her self inflicted disaster and own up to her dress WHILE I own up to MY petticoat that she altered into a dress!!!

And what does Thandile have to say about this? Here is her latest Facebook comment:

Another person who is defending herself is Katy Katapodis, Eyewitness News boss. She tweeted this from the State Of The Nation Red Carpet:

Katy has now retracted what she said, and while not really owning the mistake, she has had to explain herself.

Here’s her apology:

I was on a plane back from Cape Town as I watched a young guy, in his mid to late 20s, snatch an empty Coke tin from the clutches of an old man, crush it in his fist, mutter obscenities loud enough for those immediately around him to hear and buzz furiously for the flight attendant.  At some point I thought his index finger would go straight through the top of the plane, that’s how cross he was.

The crime? The old man sitting next to him had the audacity to place his empty cold drink tin into the pouch directly in front of the cross man with the strong finger, and not in his own.

The older man said nothing during or after this mucho display of childlike behaviour. Instead he stood up slowly a few minutes later and made his way to the bathroom. He struggled to move, his paper-thin skin dangling loosely off his boney structure, his knees so wobbly they couldn’t straighten.

I felt so terribly sorry for him. Why do we have to be so aggressive, so rude, so nasty to each other I wondered? Why can’t we be kinder?
I thought about the terrible road rage incident in Northriding on Valentine’s Day, another reminder of the insanity of guns. What went so horribly wrong that the motorist and motorcyclist pulled guns on each other in peak-hour morning traffic? Why were they even carrying guns? It defies logic, and had tragic consequences. One dead, another seriously injured and behind bars.

It also took me back to the opening of Parliament and State of the Nation address  – the reason for my Cape Town visit – and I cringed as I thought about the way South Africans took enormous pleasure in tearing apart the larger than life MP who wore the tight, short, crimped, bright yellow dress at the State of the Nation. Yes, that one.

No doubt, it was fashion hara-kiri. A massive error of couture judgement. Forget colour blocking, this was colour splatting…of the extra large variety.
What was she thinking and why didn’t those around her stop her from walking out of her house like that. Who designed/sold her that dress I asked myself repeatedly as I watched her on the red carpet, just metres away from where I was standing as the camera lights around her flashed away.
I also took a photo … and then, like many others around me, I tweeted it with the words “What not to wear!”

What was intended to be fashion commentary on my part turned out into a free for all with one awful response after another coming my way. My followers LOL’ed SMH’ed, LMAO’ed and OMG’d.

Some of the nastier responses included: “Whale hunting season open,” “What has been seen cannot be unseen,” and “She was insane enough to wear that, but whoever dressed her needs to be slapped.”

I was retweeted 132 times and before I knew it, I was trending on Twitter. I certainly wasn’t the only one who tweeted and my timeline was filled with commentary and criticism from all the self-proclaimed Gianni Versace’s and Kanye West wannabes. But ultimately it didn’t make it right. It was out of hand.

Since when did a “What not to wear” comment about fashion degenerate into such awful abuse?

At some point a Mail & Guardian reporter tweeted me to say that Thandile Sunduza was in fact seven months pregnant. I retweeted it in attempt to stop the nastiness.

It got worse. One person came straight at me asking if she was carrying one baby in front and two in her behind. The response was cruel and I immediately regretted my “What not to wear” tweet.

What happened to Thandile Sunduza was no different to the cyber bullying stories we read and report on all too often. We bullied her. We mocked her. We poked fun at her for all to see and share in the laugh. And she collapsed, landing up in hospital.

I for one am sorry for my part in it, and I’ll say it again; we need to remind ourselves to be kinder to each other.