A Crash Course in Cape Town Cool

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With Spring and both SA and Mercedes-Benz Fashion Weeks around the corner (along with the subsequent "omg how am i gonna prove to jozi cool kids that, you know, if i try hard enuf i could be one of them" sartorial panic), I've been pondering a very cliched renewal and refresh. Mostly in the case of my level of cool barely cutting it in the mainland and what that could mean when I'm trying to coerce -- I mean convince -- kids into being my friends should I make it to the shores for the afterlife (read: university).

Boy, am I going to have to develop a great personality or something equally as insipid because I do not have the juice like that. I don't know if it's that early 2000s Old Money tendency towards pretending you bought your Ralph Lauren and Chanel that moth-eaten and hand-me-down-y, or maybe the mother city's infamous winds or just that everyone on the Atlantic seaboard is so ready for a tsunami or some wild, wild waves that they're wearing all their favourite items at once.

While Joburg Barbies are moving closer and closer to that clean-cut, hard line geometric minimalism that sees the second coming of the Adidas stripe, careful proportion play and athleisure neoprene and net fabrics, I'm still stuck in that circa 2008 time warp with a bigger is better soundtrack. I've expressed this sentiment earlier in my give me a new millenium post but no one has locally been feeding me the vibes and aesthetics I really crave.

Well, at least until I finally caught up on July's Mercedes Benz Fashion Week Cape Town bookmarks.

Nina Milner at MBFWCT (source)

Marianne Fassler (source)

MBFWCT was one of the first fashion week instances when ready-to-wear designers were sustaining my life force much better than the actual street style. I guess my resistance to change hasn't reached all the high street trend setters (note: I am also partly jelly because I can't bring myself to not mix patterns or grasp minimalism beyond the position of voyeur). But Marianne Fassler, Habits and Nicole West were giving me that #YOLO wear all your favourite things at once / Old Money "moth eaten" silk / proportions and fabrics lighter than the weather / circular sunglass framed artisanal coffee shop alternative rap/rock cyber kasi / pseudo-safari(ugh that should so be a thing) look. This has also always been my favourite aspect to Cape Town cool kids like Daisie Jo and Tony (who I will never stop referencing).

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Tony Gum doing all of it (source)

Daisie Jo (who's also my favourite Elle Rising Star finalist)

Habits (source)

Habits

Habits

Habits

Habits

Nicola West (source)

If anyone needs me I'll be investing in large quantities of chiffon, organza and rainbow spectrum prints and patterns. Should you spot me in your neighbourhood craft beer garden or roaming the meeting points of Johannesburg's Dutch and English architecture, don't be swayed by my carefully constructed look of disdain or that I've had Cherry Bomb on loop - I'm still very obviously a loser kid.