“I am going to make everything around me beautiful.” Elsie de Wolf

With an aim to make everything around her beautiful, Joanna Hedley from Beach Cult loves to create, paint, design and surround herself with the creations of others. This passion for creation, paired with her love of travel and fashion, which she has had for as long as she can remember, has rooted her firmly in a fashionable foundation.

Describing herself as very expressive, Joanna believes that fashion is the medium we use to express ourselves in society, and is inspired by the sheer newness of the local fashion industry, exploding with inventive ideas and creative influences.

Influenced by where she lives, Cape Town continually inspires Joanna as a swimwear designer, and the surrounding natural beauty has influenced her prints of local flora and fauna.

With her grandmother as her greatest inspiration, Joanna envisions local labels, such as her own, being exported and gaining respect on an international level, in years to come; with her greatest challenge, as a local designer, being choosing direction and relying on others to get the job done.

Having shown at Africa Fashion Week London 2015 and Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week 2016, she has a selection of style icons that inspire her including Azzedine Alaia, Bridget Bardot, Kate Moss and Alexa Chung; and her favourite fashion quote is the Italian phrase: ‘Tutto i Subito,’ meaning ‘all and now.’ Joanna aims to experience the full length and breadth of the scope of possibility, and she wants to do it now.

Her greatest compliments come from her boyfriend Ross, who supports her with endless love, compassion and understanding, and on the rare occasion when she isn’t designing, Joanna is fulfilling another passion of hers – travel.

The Beach Cult Collection is made for the modern sophisticated gypsy, the woman who wants to express herself in beautiful fabrics and colours; and isn’t afraid to show to the world what she thinks and feels. The Collection has been created ethically and is self-expressive, and Joanna cannot wait to share her vision at Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week Cape Town 2017 taking place from the 23rd-25th March.

Follow AFI on Twitter and Instagram: @afi_sa for constant Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week Cape Town updates as well as show schedules and ticket information.

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