HE IS a designer with the stamina to pursue and conquer the world of fashion in South Africa. With his muscular physique, British accent and swagger you could mistake him for a rapper. The 23-year old fashion designer exudes sex appeal and style.

The only sickness the chap suffers from is a heavy potion of verbal diarrhoea.

André Brown has only been in the country for a few months but he is already spewing poison, bad-mouthing and belittling local designers.

If his street wear label, Kcozey Clothing, is anything to go by, though, the England-born half-Spanish and half- Jamaican fashion designer has a case. The quality and character of his label is hot, if you ask me.

Brown, who is in a partnership with Lucie Boji, a local, says his move to South Africa was prompted by a huge gap he saw in the local street wear market.

He criticises local street wear designers for failing consumers with their inferior products. He also takes a snipe at street wear label Amakip Kip, whom he says has no depth.

"The problem with Amakip Kip is that their T-shirts are just a word. What they have done was to take a T-shirt and print words.

"There is no story there. They lack taste, originality, and soul," he says.Brown adds that he is in the country to set a different fashion stage and to give brands like Amakip Kip a run for their money.

"For a long time this country has been in need of good street wear designs. Unlike Amakip Kip, my whole label is not just a title. The whole point is to elevate youth culture and street style by equating it with the confections whipped up in a fancy atelier," he says.

He adds that South Africans are a very fashionable crowd but the only problem is that the street wear does not have its own style identity.

"I put the blame at the door of the so-called local street wear designers. South Africans have copied so many American designs that the only way you can differentiate between local and American designs is quality. The local street wear designs look like a cheap version of the American thing."

Explaining his label, Brown says Kcozey Clothing is a now classic garments that have become the backbone of a wardrobe. Efforts to speak to Amakip Kip drew a blank.

But what is this guy's claim to fame?

He is a British citizen who holds a degree in advertising and marketing for fashion designing. He fell in love with fashion at a very young age.

"My mother is a real style icon. She can turn anything into a classy item," Brown says.

From a young age he knew he was going to venture into fashion one way or the other.

Through his studies he mastered the art of marketing fashion and started his own line in 2006 in London.

It was not easy to make it in one of fashion's mightiest capitals.