Recently, Mainstay took collaborative efforts one-step further by commissioning three promising young designers to each design a summer cocktail dress for three winning entrants of Mainstay Summer Cocktails.

An online competition ran from February to April, providing the perfect platform to launch the extension of the Mainstay ready-to-drink classic cocktail line. The designers’ brief was to create a silhouette that best represented a new cocktail variant (Mojito, Strawberry Daiquiri, Pina Colada, On The Beach, Mango Daiquiri and Cranberry Cosmo) – incentivising fashion-loving female South Africans to vote for, endorse and stand the chance of winning one of the three garments.

“The exposure that Tatum Kelly, Ryan Jarvis and Jordyn Pollock received was exponential. Over three months, just over 22 000 Facebook fans began following the Summer Cocktails news. The campaign website, total entries, and unique visitors, was a great success” says Kurt Hermanus, SA brand manager for the Mainstay Portfolio.

Fashion enthusiasts’ obsession with mingling drinks and a stroll along the catwalk is by no means something new, and popular watering holes in New York have been quick to take advantage. New York’s Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week in February witnessed the creation of fashion-inspired cocktails, ranging from the Empire Hotel’s Avant-garde-tini (coconut rum, pineapple juice, lemon juice and Turbinado syrup), to the Pencil Skirt (vodka, cucumber, lemon juice and soda) and the Little Black Dress (tequila, grapefruit juice, lime juice, agave nectar and soda) served by the Morgans Hotel Group’s Mondrian Soho, and the Hudson Hotel in Manhattan.

Comments Hermanus, “Through fashion, we are adding texture and colour to the overall Mainstay experience; but more than that, our brand is having a positive impact on finding, recognising and nurturing young, homegrown talent – like Tatum, Ryan and Jordyn – showing them that the world is truly their oyster … or in our lingo, island.”

Graduating from FEDISA with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Fashion Design, Jordyn Pollock proudly reveals that she is working towards launching her womens-wear label, Harlo, in July. She adds that the value that brands like Mainstay can play in developing a promising young career in fashion is invaluable. “The campaign has enabled me to launch myself as a brand. It’s sad to see that these days, the public doesn’t seem to have much faith in young designers; our inexperience counts against us, but this campaign has given me a wonderful public platform to showcase my talents and I am proud to represent young South African designers. ”

Ryan Jarvis, on the other hand, is a fine artist who also hails from Cape Town and his artistic flair has gone far beyond just canvas, paper or paint. Mentored by leading tattoo artist, Fabian Gunthel, of Young Guns in Observatory, Jarvis is now focusing his attention on designing for the ‘human canvas’, as he puts it. Not to be outdone, Tatum Kelly, the third designer for Mainstay’s campaign and former fashion design head of FEDISA, recently launched her fashion label, Paper Dolls.

The excitement will culminate in a weekend away at the end of July for winning entrants Kate Arnold (21) from Port Elizabeth, Elsabe Ros (22) from Pretoria and Darian Van Coller (19) from Harrismith, which sees them undergoing a series of fittings with the designers, pampered time at a spa and a dinner at The Grand Café & Beach in Granger Bay, before returning home.