I love older women. No, not like that.
Like this…
You go, gogo! We love you. We love your vibe. We love your handbag. And we love that airbag. And we don’t love – how do da Americans say? – that “douchebag” who hooted at you. That was simply too beautiful for words!
Right. I know I’ve had a pop at Cape Town’s WC2010 stadium and likened it to a “half-sucked Polo mint” but then, to be even-handed about it, I gracefully accepted that Durban’s new Moses Mabhida Stadium does look a bit like Paris Hilton dropped her handbag in the middle of Durbs.
Fair’s fair, yes? But, no, the Cape Town vs Durban conflict has now gone to a new level since Cape Town’s Amanda Sevasti lambasted food writer Anne Stevens of Durban for her stinging attack on the Mother City.
Yowzers. This is nastiness. Bitterness. Dare I say it, hatefulness. This makes Man United vs Liverpool, Bush vs Osama, Australia vs England, Everybody vs Australia look like a Rotarians’ tea party in a sun-dappled meadow. Next to a gurgling stream. Instead of the gentle thwack of willow against leather, I hear the mega-thwack of a Louis Vuitton handbag against meaty temple.
I say we should get this internecine goading out of the way before our nice foreign soccer fans arrive for the World Cup. We need to work together, guys. Yes? Quite right. So allow me to present the original anti-Cape town article, as written by La Stevens… and then the robust riposte as published by La Sevasti. and then, dear and peaceable Hatpeople, we can put this spat to the vote and put this whole malarkey to bed. OK?
OK. Here is Anne’s anti-Cape Town tirade, as published in the Sunday Tribune (it follows a nice scene-setting pic of Durbs-by-the-Sea, complete with Paris’s lost handbag)…
In the north-east corner... Durbs Pic courtesy of http://allanphoto.wordpress.com/
Cape Town, you can keep your mountain
By Anne Stevens
October 13 2009, Sunday Tribune
“Cape Town sucks.
This may be a harsh judgment of the bedrock of South African history, but with one reluctant foot on the tip of
the continent, its extremities in the water and heart yearning for Europe, this is hardly an African city.
Fuelled by tourist dollars, pounds and euros, it sets itself apart from the rest of the country with a hauteur that is
infuriating. “Oh, but we’ve got The Mountain,” a Capetonian remarked recently when mildly reminded that Durban has good beaches and warmer water. That’s part of the trouble. The bloody mountain is whichever way you turn, making a crow’s flight trip from Rondebosch to Hout Bay resemble the Great Trek.
Now, as all Hatpeople know, I take a very keen interest in all matters fashion. Nay, allow me to rephrase that… The Hatman is widely regarded as a renowned arbiter of cutting-edge, street-savvy style. Especially in Umdloti.
This is clearly obvious when you drool over the picture below, in which I modelled the Bob’s For Good Italian loafers to support Springbok rugby legend Bob Skinstad’s philanthropic bid to give a pair of shoes to underprivileged South African kids who were plodding off to school barefoot.
Eat your heart out, Milan: Italian loafers have never looked this good
Along with other haute couture heavyweights such as Ralph Lauren, Giorgio Armani, Donna Karan, Jimmy Choo, Yohji Yamaha, Sago Suzuki and Massimo Motoguzzi, I like to occasionally do my bit to help those less fortunate. It’s the cool thing to do, right?
Social responsibilities aside, I love to encourage – now that I am on the wrong side of 30 – the kids on the street to get their look just right. It’s important to step off to college or the office with a vibe that shouts: “You had better take me seriously! I do.”
This is why I simply adore the Chictopia website. How should I put this? Chictopia is kind of like a, um, more inclusive, social networky version of my fellow fashion fundi, The Sartorialist, who finds excruciatingly trendy peeps on the streets of SoHo and the Village, snaps them on his Kodak Instamatic and pulls big bucks by chucking them on to his site and into books. Nice work, Sart.
I’m fine with that. It’s known as the entrepeneurial spirit. And I enjoy all spirits, especially Olmeca. So one of the very first things I do after arising at Hatman Mansions of a late afternoon is check in on Chictopia to glory in the boundless creative spirit expressed by the arb peep on the world’s streets. Chictopia never lets me down.
Today I was drawn to an image of a very sharp, mean-looking dude hanging in a gritty alleyway wearing some hardcore clobber that suggested he was on his way to a Manila Fight Club event. Except he had teamed his DIY-ripped tee, rugged jeans and seriously macho boots with a, er, handbag. Fine. OK. I’m all for the freedom of expression. So let’s unpack Karl’s vibe…
Karl's so hard he's throwing down a rude thumb-twixt-fingers challenge at the photographer. And check the fancy footwork!
Niceness. I don’t know about you but I’m digging this look. Mostly because I don’t get it quite right when I join the okes for a few cold ones down the Bush Tavern. I so need to scour Gateway for a divine handbag to complete my “Don’t mess with me, have you seen Brad in Fight Club?” ensemble.
Inspirationalness right there. I’m amped to dump my Lenny Kravitz velvet-codpiece mojo vibe and plug into Karl’s hardboy i-marge. Gen will be so chuffed when we park her TT at the Bush and I send the so-called Bush crew diving behind the potplants. She’ll be all over me like a rash. As will my Louis Vuitton handbag. Ooooh!
A tune that I just can’t get out of my head at the mo is Variety Lab’s (I Like) London In The Rain off the well-chilled Hotel Costes compilations (Quatre – No 4 – since you ask)… but – and don’t tell the Variety Lab crew – I’ve customised the lyrics (all six words of them) in my head and in the shower to “I, Like, Totally Dig Durban In The Rain”.
You see, yesterday and today are two of the roughly 23 days of the year that the sun don’t shine on our city of pure sub-tropical sumptuousness and, like the sprawling gardens of Hatman Mansions, I do like a drop of rain. Weather report over, may I give you yet another reason to fall in love with the city where all of you fantasise to be when the World Cup 2010 finals kick off in South Africa next June?
OK. So you’re on the edge of your seats, lungfuls of air tightly sucked in. Good. Here it is…
Just. Drink. It. All. In. Our ocean. Our city. Yes, OUR World Cup Stadium. With its glorious arch. Beautifulnesses all round there my babies!
I thought you’d like that. This work of art was snapped by none other than Allan Jackson, scribe of the Fishnet column in South Africa’s Sunday Tribune, and you can see more of his photographic gems right here. Nice work, Allan. And thanks for sending this little i-marge my way.
OK. So I know what you’re thinking. You are sat there looking at Allan’s pic and saying to yourself: “Mmm, nice stadium but what’s going on with that beach, bru?” Nice. I love inquiring minds. Truth is, Hatpeople, that the Durban municipality, because they just cannot spend enough on ensuring that your World Cup experience is unsurpassed, are totally revamping our beachfront.
Like, totally. By the time our city fathers and mothers (and their cousins and their cousins’ cousins) are finished tinkering with it, you lot sitting at Miami South Beach (and I know you’re reading this because my latest Google Analytics stats record a massive jump in American Hatpeople visiting this blog, no pork) will be physically contorted with envy. I’m cool with that.
What I’m not quite so cool with are the Cape Town crew who have been spamming me and saying that our WC2010 stadium (Moses Mabhida Stadium to you) looks like Paris Hilton lost her biggest handbag while on a whirlwind visit to Durban. Not nice. Quite funny. But not very nice.
As my Dad used to say, if you haven’t got anything nice to say, don’t say it. And, as always, he was right. He was my Dad. So my message to those Capetonians trying to wrench the World Cup limelight away from the most drop-dead gorgeous city in South Africa is this: “You carry on sitting under that silly little flat-topped hill of yours, sipping skinny lattes outside Giovanni’s in your poncy designer clothes and just focus on that pathetic well-sucked-Polo-mint confection of a stadium your municipality spent your rates money on.”
There. War declared against the Mother City. Cool. We Durbanites are legendary for our laidbackness. But we’re also, like, so totally Zulu up here. That’s just how we roll. And jump. And brandish our spears. So we will fight when we have to. Paris Hilton’s handbag! That’s just sick. And asking for trouble.