SA Fashion Week’s Lucilla Booyzen remembers icon Albertus Swanapoel

In a world dominated by fast fashion, the art of craftsmanship is often forgotten. However, when a career is driven by a passion for the bespoke and carefully crafted, the artistry cannot be ignored.

Renowned milliner Albertus Quartus Swanepoel understood this all too well. The South African-born, New York-based designer passed away unexpectedly last Wednesday night, leaving behind an incredible career in sartorial headwear marked by his expressive, witty and sophisticated take on millinery.

After graduating from the University of Pretoria with a BA in fine arts, Swanepoel started his own clothing line in the 1980s and quickly made his mark, winning the Coty Award as the country’s top designer. An inherent passion and the promise of a job pushed Swanepoel to move to New York in 1989, escaping the “stiflingly conservative 1970s South Africa”.

Initially working as a glove maker, Swanepoel found himself studying millinery under the experienced eye of Janine Galimard, a revered hat-maker who had previously worked for Cristobal Balenciaga.

His eye for proportion and inventive, yet time-honoured, techniques saw his career blossom, leading to collaborations with designers including Marc Jacobs, Proenza Schouler and Alexander Wang. Rubbing shoulders with actors, editors and fashion icons, it wasn’t only his millinery masterpieces that grabbed the attention of the fashion industry.

Director of South African Fashion Week and one of Swanepoel’s closest friends, Lucilla Booyzen, highlighted the kind, passionate and caring nature of the illustrious designer.

United in their appreciation for the arts, Booyzen recalled the moment she first met the couturier at a showing of one of his collections, in a conversation about French designer Christian Lacroix.

“My first conversation with Albertus was about Lacroix. One of the last pictures he sent me on his final day was of an early 2000s Lacroix collection with the words, ’Beauty, to uplift your spirits from the great master, extraordinary’.

“That was who Albertus was — a purist in every way, an extraordinary, gifted, loyal, honest and loving friend. Over and above this, he was a designer of exquisite taste.”