Inside CHROMISM: How the BAM Collective turned a Johannesburg forest into fashion's most immersive runway yet

BAM COLLECTIVE - CHROMISM - 26-27 - RUNWAY Photography by Pierre Van Vuuren

Forget everything you know about a "fashion show." On Friday, 28 August, The BAM Collective didn't just present a collection — they built a world, planted it in a forest, and invited 200 of SA's fashion cognoscenti to walk straight into it.

CHROMISM 26/27 is the independent fashion house's biggest, boldest, most technically ambitious outing to date. Thirty handcrafted looks. Months of development. Zero traditional runway. Staged beneath the towering Wattle trees at GROUND The Venue in Muldersdrift, the show swapped white-box minimalism for golden-hour theatre — proof that when Jacques Bam says "experience," he means it literally.

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The Big Idea: Attraction, Decoded

Nature doesn't do beauty for beauty's sake. Every colour, every curve, every extravagant bloom exists to communicate, to lure, to survive. That's the thesis CHROMISM ran with — translating millions of years of evolutionary flirtation into fabric.

"Attraction is often mistaken for something superficial, but in nature it's one of the most powerful forces for survival, communication and evolution," says founder and creative director Jacques Bam. "CHROMISM asks what happens when fashion adopts that same purpose — when every colour, texture and silhouette is designed not simply to decorate, but to create connection."

Bold claim. Bolder execution.

Before the Show Even Started

The immersion began before guests hit a single seat. A signature BAM media wall framed in foliage set the tone at the entrance, while tree-lined pathways — strung with hundreds of hand-tied ribbons cut from fabrics of past BAM collections — quietly walked guests through the house's own history en route to the forest.

And then, the indulgence: a Wild Africa Cream bar for arrivals, Carlton Hair and Catrice Cosmetics on hand for touch-ups, A1 Drink's African Craft Soda flowing throughout, and Magiesvol keeping the backstage cast fuelled on artisanal platters. Guests browsed SOEK Sunglasses South Africa (with founder Angelique herself in attendance) and lingered at the Kalon Wellness & Bra Studio lounge, where a striking live installation paired Kalon's bras with iconic BAM skirts — a masterclass in the dialogue between craft and the body.

Reception, essentially, was its own runway.

Then: The Forest Took Over

Under the creative direction of Natalia Fernandez, Aura Creative turned the Wattle Forest into a living theatre. Late-afternoon light streamed through the canopy in shifting shafts of gold, the trees stood in as natural columns, and models didn't walk so much as emerge — weaving between guests in a choreography that blurred the line between show and setting entirely.

"We didn't want nature to become a backdrop. We wanted it to become part of the performance," Bam explains. "As the show unfolded, the models almost became a new species inhabiting the forest. The audience wasn't simply watching a runway. They were immersed inside the world of CHROMISM."

The show opened with a flourish only BAM would attempt: an operatic performance from ADAM 'The Drag Diva,' whose haunting take on Vesti la giubba rang out through the trees before he stepped into the collection's opening look. From there, an original cinematic score by Aura Creative built steadily — meditative at first, then tipping into something psychedelic, almost rave-adjacent, as the colour story intensified alongside it.

The Colour Story, Chapter by Chapter

True to its evolutionary premise, CHROMISM unfolded like a transformation. Sculptural black opened the show, giving way to monochrome, then a wash of vivid pink, verdant green, electric blue and luminous yellow — before landing on the finale's architectural silver looks, dressed in riotous multicoloured tulle florals.

It read less like a palette and more like a plot line: restraint to abundance, shadow to spectacle — each chapter another stage in nature's pursuit of connection.

The craftsmanship matched the concept beat for beat. Polka-dot chiffon met shimmering floral sequins; bouclés and brocades sat against sculptural striped taffeta and BAM's signature denim. Feather embellishment, cascading fringe, and bouquets of individually handmade fabric flowers turned each of the thirty looks into something you wanted to touch, not just see.

The Finale That Said It All

As the show built to its close, models poured out from the forest's bend in growing numbers — an entire army of colour — settling onto plinths scattered through the trees. For the first time, the collection's full chromatic range stood together as one living installation: a celebration of attraction, diversity, and nature in full, unapologetic bloom.

Then Jacques Bam himself walked into the forest, leading the full cast out through the audience in one final, unified procession — closing CHROMISM the same way it opened: with spectacle, colour, and absolute intention.

Consider us seduced.