All White Sucks



Kim Kardashian is not to be trusted.

Olivia Pope is not to be trusted. Country club members on tennis courts are not to be trusted.

Anyone who regularly wears all-white ensembles is very clearly a psychopath or privileged enough to have a mousy assistant who serves them red wine in sippy cups and puts down sheets when they're about to take a seat. In addition, anyone who regularly wears all-white ensembles enjoys having everyone look at them sideways when they choose to stand a metre from walls, inspect surfaces supposedly for sitting and ask for the driest dishes on the menu.

See, to live an all-white life is to continually struggle. Sure, you're super aesthetic and an Instagram wet dream but you will die inside. Your once adorably clumsy friend with a thing for cranberry juice is now your enemy. You can't enjoy outdoor excursions with your friends because you can't catch any of the jokes, preoccupied by the thought of grass stains. What is the point of being oh so crisp, so clean, so minimal when you can't even enjoy lunch with your friends because everyone thinks you're a priss for putting down ten serviettes before you sat.

Wearing all-white means you must sacrifice your life for the aesthetic, essentially doing everything for the Vine.

My mesh top is from H&M, tennis skirt Mr Price, Rubi/Cotton On flats and one sock is Reebok, the other addidas. My choker and marabou cuff are handmade by yours truly.

Anyone wear all-white ever? Why do/would you like to suffer like that?

Sahara Nouveau Via SA Menswear Week

(source)

Not more than four days ago, my creative design teacher expressed how lucky I was to be interested in designing menswear in this day age because of how much it's all changed since she was making men's clothes. For one, sex and gender issues are at such a fore in our popular culture that designers have more leeway to explore gender neutrality and some even moving towards postgender (Gypsy Sport comes to mind here). In addition, the idea of functionality being the defining trait of what makes menswear is taking a backseat to more notions of decorativeness and aesthetics that women's clothing fully embodies (think of the amount of prints, patterns, silhouettes available to women, versus the often solid colours and linear cuts of men's clothing).

Of course, this isn't to say that functionality is being abandoned to the scale that it often is in women's clothing. In fact, current menswear is made all the more innovative and interesting by the meeting point of aesthetic and function, or as Vogue's Maya Singer puts it: Practical Peacocking.

 

While designers use soft, girly colour palettes or maxi-skirts and assymetrical hemlines, there's a harder emphasis on straighter, harder line, dramatic movement, and toying with structural fabrics. This idea of functionality has kept more avant garde designs from appearing completely dandified or cross-dresser lite but retained a signature look exclusive to menswear. 

 

From NY Menswear Week and London Collections Men, I've seen  the Rude Boy or Dark Prince aesthetic (a la McQ Alexander McQueen and Siki Im), abstracted atheleisure, postmodern deconstruction by way of Greg Lauren and a new clean cut Mr Man look (think Public School) or a rougher, street smart prepster like the Theory or Orley man.

 

Interestingly enough, local designers at South Africa Menswear Week didn't blindly follow suit as many popular designers are prone to do. While the influence of international aesthetics like the Rude Boy and prepster could be seen, they only served to enhance an inherently South African look: a look that varied from a haute couture safari adventure from an African gaze (like Jenevieve Lyons), initiation/bush school retreats (Pilgrim), references to South Africa's huge Eastern/Arab/Persian culture (Imprint) to pop cult, Internet culture tones like in Dicker, Maxivive and Blanc.

Clockwise from top left: Dicker //  Dicker // Blanc //

Clockwise from top left: Maxivive // Augustine // Maxivive // Blanc

Clockwise from top left: Blanc // Blanc // Taf the Taylor // Jenevieve Lyons

Clockwise from top left: Jenevieve Lyons // Jenevieve Lyons / Jenevieve Lyons // Maxivive

Clockwise from top left: Maxivive // Dicker // Pilgrim // Imprint

Clockwise from top left: Imprint // Maxivive // Martin Kadinda // Martin Kadinda

Clockwise from top left: Martin Kadinda // Imprint // Augustine // Augustine // Dicker // Dicker

Martin Kadinda.

Clockwise from top left: Blanc // Pilgrim // Pilgrim // Taf the Taylor

All photos are from SDR Photo.