Cape Town fashion weak
Now all those lucky enough to see me striding in stellar sartoriality around Umdloti will eagerly testify to my indisputable credentials as an arbiter on all things fashion. Should you need reminding of this, allow your eyeballs to caress this unspeakably stylish image of me in a previous post.
Right. Now, contrary to what Capetonians might think, I don’t enjoy pointing to the fact that they are insufferably smug about themselves and the city in which they wetly exist. Really. I don’t. I would rather ignore the pretentious poseurs in that pseudo-Mediterreanean territory down in the sodden south-east and get on with living in Africa. And keeping it real.
But then worrying little snippets sneak in through the back door of Hatman Mansions and it becomes beholden on me, as a SA-positive blogger, to fearlessly expose the Smother City citizens for the frauds they are.
Take fashion. Everybody knows that almost all of South Africa’s fashion designers worth their seams come out of Durban. We know who they are. Monk-Klijnstra, Kidger, Immerman, Bray, The Holmes Bros, the seamster in the backroom at Casanova, and so on. Enriched as we are by their know-no-bounds creativity, Durbanites sashay a lone furrow in pursuit of the Holy Grail of South African haute couture.
So, to tug ever so gently at the labelled lapel of the ginormous brouhaha created by the kind of uber-hype only Capetonians can invent over their fashion week, could I ask you to take a deep breath and witness this little gem…
Oh. MY. God. What did you make of that? Everybody head-to-toe in Mr Price. I know, I know. Agony.
How was the beauty therapist at the beginning banging on about how she is a one-woman celebration of colour and then looking like she was filmed in sepia? And Michaela, looking like she had hurtled out of her front door 10 minutes after her alarm went off? Wait. She admitted to it. Kept it fairly real. She might be from Durban. Mishkah is a bit of a honey and we Durbanites can relate to the dude with the surfing/skateboarding vibe, even if his hoody is a bit off. And Stefan! Isn’t he just divine. And soooo Cape Town. As were those faux accents. Sounding like that cheesey Top Billing oke, Michael Mols, but on low speed.
I think we have to blame that flat-topped hill for a great deal of Cape Town’s ills. That karma stuff they go on about. They just take it too seriously. And themselves. Too much of uptight. A little less organic everything and a bit of old-fashioned roughage in their diet might help to relax them.
Cape Town, I must beg you again to keep it real. I’m watching you. And my eyes are hurting.