The world is undergoing a major paradigm shift that is being engineered by the progressive thinking and innovation of some minds especially in the Western hemisphere. According to the chief architect of this sentiment, the American Daniel H. Pink, we are moving from the Information Age to the Conceptual Age. In substance, he posits that the key to delivering value in this age is to engage in work that involves high concept and high touch abilities.
High concept includes creating artistic or emotional beauty or appeal, detecting patterns or opportunities and producing a novel synthesis of seemingly unrelated ideas.
The Conceptual Age architects have consequently placed the artist in a new significant and decisive position that will leverage the most returns from this new scheme of things. This ostensibly cryptic notion has already taken root in the sprawling multi billion dollar fashion design industry – for obvious reasons, perhaps.
Fashion design is one of or probably the most exciting art form that resonates best with the public and the reason for this is not difficult to fathom. Firstly, fashion is a functional and wearable necessity that is utilized by all humanity and secondly, unlike paintings and sculpture; it is showcased by human models – usually gorgeous ones.
For sometime now, the concept of clothing has transcended the status of a mere need for covering nakedness to enhancing glamour and creating status symbols. This puts designers in a challenging position of dressing mankind with radically varying tastes and incomes. The age-old maxim that, “You are addressed the way you are dressed,” has never been truer than it is today. This path has since caught the charm in Africa and Uganda has not been spared. Among those trying to harness indigenous trends in the industry are the budding designers at Uganda’s premier university.
On November 27, third year students of fashion design at the Margaret Trowell School of Industrial and Fine Arts, Makerere University held a fashion design show codenamed “MTSIFA Fashion Blast 2009.” The purpose of the show was to prepare students of fashion for the practical world and expose them to the public before they venture into the murky waters of stiff competition.
The 28 youngsters presented three outfits each under three different categories, including: high street, high fashion and creative wears. The models that strutted the catwalk were all 2nd and 1st year students of the same school. The eventful showcase that took place 
outdoors in the Makerere art gallery quadrangle attracted a massive turn up of mainly campus students, lecturers and other outsiders. Prominent among the special guests were fashion design connoisseur, columnist and label owner, Paula Butagira Arinaitwe, who was the chief guest, accompanied by fellow fashion design aficionado and New Vision columnist, Keturah Kamugasa.
Model after model was greeted with ululations as the designers unleashed their best. There was certainly a significant variation in creativity and presentation as some outfits exuded high concept and high touch while others were quite deficient in imagination.
However, where nearly all the students laboured to excel was in the aspect of creative wears. Right from the materials used to the composition, revelers were treated to a collection of wacky outfits that can only be described as off-the-wall. Notable among which was a garb wrought in condoms, both opened and sealed ones of varied types and flavours; a costume made of tinted bathing sponges, one made of CDs and others in all manner of basketry.
As is quite obvious on most fashion shows, the designers and models that exhibited the most flesh elicited the loudest shouts from the packed crowd. Notable among the designers was former Miss Uganda, Monica Kasyate, now third year student of art at the same school. Whether or not the emerging designers grasp the ideals of the so-called Conceptual Age by venturing in uncharted waters is a matter of debate.
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