People please, sssstop crying

I just watched E-News (as one does) and saw that there's an apparent hoo-haa about Beyonce's latest cover on the French fashion Bible, Koran and Torah put together, L'Officiel.  I then ran to my computer, did a bit of research and saw that there are some rather unhappy folk who are "upset" that Beyonce, according to them, is emulating or channeling the severely offensive tactics of white Americans in early 19th Century theatre and performance - Blackface, where white people would paint themselves dark brown and act the fool while portraying black people.

I think that these images:

Have very little to do with that old school mentality that inferred that the black man and woman was only servile and existed to give credence to the notion that white is right and any other race is beneath that supreme realm.  Beyonce is black for god's sake and she painted her face as a way to pay homage to and channel Fela Kuti (which good living artist of today hasn't?), and I guess referenced Nigerian cultural nuances in her dress and makeup.   Some are saying this is degrading to real Africans, HOW? Because it shows just how dark we are? That some of us paint our faces all "tribal"? Even if that was pure fabrication, I still would'nt be offended because the execution of the idea, which Grace Jones amongst other artists has done, is incredible.  If this was a white person doing this, I think I would be a little offended because being black is not about skin colour, it's a state of mind, to paraphrase Biko. 

Only black people (a term you could debate all night but basically any black person including mixed ones), can relate fully to what connects a lot of black people around the world, and because of that, there is a certain "ownership to blackness" that only black people can own.  It's exactly the same thing as black people calling each other the niggas, a semantic "privilege" that only belongs to black people.

I didn't mean to get so deep about this but I'm glad I have.  That is all I have to say. I think she looks amazing because she is boldly portraying the unapologetic and gaudy beauty of Africa and African women.  The fact that she left the rest of her body in her natural colour, makes more of a statement about the black race in relation to the rest of the world. If you don't get it, that's fine but don't jump on a silly bandwagon that claims to never listen to a Beyonce song again because of this. Wipe your tears! I really wish I could write out the venomous sound of a Nigerian woman full of contempt, that dragged out Mmmmcccccxxxxhhhhhww!

Better late than never

For Wear South African Friday, I present:

Miss Marion in a Doreen Southwood Dress (we didn't plan to bump into each other) and me in Christopher Strong Tshirt and Silver Spoon pants!

The Mememe and Two Cheapy McCheap Cheap Sale

Our doors haven't opened yet but we've come up with an excuse to invite our friends and customers to come and see our little shop and leave with some almost end of summer stock! Yep, we are having a REAL sale this time. R500 and less of errrthing! 

Holler if you're coming!

iindaba

No, not that indaba (by the way wish I was in CT for it)!

SA Fashion Week kicks off in early April at a new venue in Braamfontein, the newly refurbished, glassed in Shine Studios just off the Smit Street offramp from the M1 Highway I've never been there and I absolutely can't wait to see the new summer collections from designers like Black Coffee, Silverspoon, Christopher Strong and Mantsho! I don't know if there will be tickets available to the public so if you are one of the many people that call me during fashion week asking for tickets, rather go to the SAFW site closer to the time.  And me being me, I'm not sure if I'm going as a buyer or media, but I'll be all over it like white on rice!

And then some more amazing news, I was at our new offices in Parkhurst sitting on Gina's desk, looking at a beautiful wool scarf.  "Whose scarf is that", I asked, "Oh, nothing", Caren said, "That's just one of the scarves that Anthropologie has ordered from us, we are sending them 1500 in a few weeks". Oh. Um. Ok. Right. Anthropologie. That. little. old. chairnstore. that. has. like. 135 stores. all over the world! It turns out that SA Fashion Week recently invited a US based product developer and agent to SA, with the intention of starting export relations with the US with some of our local designers. This agent happened to be from Anthropologie (I've never been but its renowned for really great women's apparel, homeware, accessories) so they placed some orders with some of our designers who are:

Two, Guillotine, Naked Ape, Black Coffee, Clive Rundle, Lunar, Stoned Cherrie and Ephymol.

I think this is a really great opportunity for our designers, despite the fact that we still have distribution issues to tackle here but we need to think beyond the borders of South Africa. 

Remember

LIBYANS

Why I'm growing my hair

I've been bald for about 5 years and though I wanted to make it my look forever, you know like how Anna has her bob, Suzie Menkes has her quiff; but I really wanna grow my hair so I can put little birdies, tigers and jeweled snakes on my head without looking like the streetkid I currently resemble with my growing hair! In about 3 weeks, I'll be able to wear it just like this:

These are pics I found on dazeddigital while reading up about The Pop Africana Mag 

Inspired by Julie Dreyfus' character in Inglorious Basterds, which I watched again on Saturday night. I love that movie. I'm mental about the styling.  When I design my own range one day, I think it will be very much inspired by 40s wartime fashion of ration and rationality on one hand and the ostentation on the other.

Meeeeeouwww I say!

Why some people make me feel shit about myself

Because I will never be able to draw like this girl no matter how much I want to.  After I stopped crying about this fact, I noticed the pics were of some famous models. Spot anyone you know?

The Bird Cage

While every other fashionista was at Joburg Fashion Week or what some are calling Just Fucking Wait because of David Tlale's epic show on the iconic Nelson Mandela Bridge bridge (read Dion Chang's account here and Janine Jellar's here,) I was taking a bit of a breather from the fashion and watching it from Twitter and my couch.  I had an unforgettable lunch at The Birdcage, a really beautiful restaurant in Saxonwold, one that's that nice because not many people know about it.   They make the a really good chicken pie (second to Cape Town's Birds Cafe), an assortment of salads with fruit and veges that taste like they are picked from God's very hands.  And their meat? Let's just say their carpaccio and salmon justify why humans eat meat. I was there for my friend Palesa's birthday lunch and was too stuffed to order dessert which came in the most delicious crockery! There's nothing better than eating good food, surrounded by beautiful people and perfect (sun) lighting! I recommend it! It's on the corner of Jan Smuts and Cotswolds I think! Follow your nose!

The birthday girl looking unsurprisingly styilsh as uzh!

LOVE the Chinese posters movie posters above the food!

Nom Nom Nom

The tea packaging!

These 70s mirrors remind me of the Owl House

Is this a Tretchikoff? 

O'hell yeah!

I'm obsessed with looking at campaign pics these days. I found this incredible campaign here and just had to share because the energy and feel of it is partly what I'd like to capture when I shoot the Mememe campaign in a few weeks with Brett Rubin and Nicole van Heerden.  This is Korean design house O'2nd's Spring 2011 Campaign. I'm about to go to a Flux Trends talk delivered by Dion Chang asking whether fashion trends are relevant in the 21st Century amongst other things. With the advent and reach of the internet, do we really need professionals telling us what's in and hip and only to be worn this or that season? Especially in beautiful climate places like here where you can pretty much get away with wearing any of these garments depending on where you are, all year round? It should be interesting!

Our Shop!

We are right next to Strangelove and two houses away from Kluk. How lucky is that? 

Here's the Mememe Shop entrance although the shop is behind me. Gina and Caren walking towards where Two will be

This is about to undergo a major transformation

Two's office, leading out to the pool and backyard

This will be a beautiful space in about 7 weeks

Ditto for this area, bring on the HTH

To the press we release!

Hot landing!

These are the first two images from Doreen Southwood's new collection for Design Indaba! It was shot yesterday. The parachute and the gun are original World War 1 paraphernalia she found on Long Street, Cape Town.  The dress and shoes will be available at Mememe Cape Town next month and Mememe Joburg in April 2011.

Danica Lepen is the new designer at Marion and Lindie

Danica Lepen

This actually didn't shock me at all, I was just kidding when I said my jaw was on the floor because I was too busy to blog about it yesterday.  At the end of last year, I was with Tiaan Nagel and Lindie Grenfell and I did get the idea that there were imminent changes at M&L.  It's a pleasant surprise that Danica, who was the other half of Black Coffee until she became a stylist last year, will replace Tiaan Nagel as the head designer.  Stuart Marsh who is the brand director of Guess and M&L at Busby House, the mini conglomerate that owns Mango, Nine West, Aldo and Claire's Accessories as well as Marion and Lindie, says "We are very excited to have Danica in our team, her focus in creating a twist on the current retail offering will remain true to co-founder Lindie Grenfell's vision for the brand and drive our goal of increasing Marion and Lindie stores from four to twelve by 2014".  Wow that's quite Julius Ceaserish, but good luck to them.  And good luck to Danica, I've always loved Marion and Lindie clothes and I wish them well.

As for Tiaan Nagel, he will go back to designing for his own brand, which took a bit of a backseat when he was at Marion and Lindie. His clothing was always palatable, I'm looking forward to a good come back!