"Omg, khensani, are those swimming trunks? u r so creative!"
Hahaha, no, peasant. I'm just broke and always twenty minutes late to everything.
Fashioning short shorts out of your brother's too, too big swimming trunks will seem like a really clever idea when you're left with two minutes to get ready before having to head out. You'll tell yourself that your colour palette is so on point and you've just extended your wardrobe by another item for absolutely free, thereby creating a whole new plethora of outfit choices for the summer (which, you seem to keep forgetting, is almost over). You'll pair your cute new shorts with a thrifted button up shirt in your favourite shades of blue ("ah, look at how well they go together," you'll remark, "this was meant to be"), slip into the pink Pull & Bear trainers you're always wearing and never washing and throw a wink at the mirror before you leave with your thrifted jacket and the remaining trophies of almost-responsible-nights-out-when-you-didn't-lose-everything on your wrists and fingers.
You good-looking fool, you.
You're going to regret all of this when the hair-ties holding your shorts up keep getting lost, the drawstring of aforementioned shorts keeps giving up on you and your shirt exploding outwards and forwards, and don't even get me started on what a burden that jacket will become to you on the dance floor. I hope the compliments were worth all the anguish.
If it would pay well, I would seriously consider a job as a professional collector of Internet things but in the interim, I bring you this.
1. Bloggers to Watch on i-D Online
The strangest thing just happened when I woke up from one of my procrastination nation naps yesterday; not only did I forget to PVR Empire but i-D, as in the publication I read almost everyday and binge read at book stores, included me in their list of high school bloggers to watch. Me, man. I thought it was a really cruel joke when someone tweeted me the link and then I found it to be true via email (to Emily Manning: many, many thanks). I still don't believe mostly because there are some seriously groovy kids there, like Ellie, Tolly Dolly Posh and my new obsessions, How to Survive as a Fashionable Teenager and Crybaby Zine. I highly recommend visting their blogs. i-D makes really great comments on everyone. (See it here.)
2. On Unlearning Misogyny and Slut Shaming
I think it's been a pretty good week for South African brown girls because my favourite poet and natural hair god, Nova, just posted this great essay on Rookie about revisiting her old feminist critique on Nicki Minaj. It was super refreshing and reassuring to read just because, like Nova, Nicki Minaj used to incite a very sour taste in my mouth. I used to buy into things like respectability politics and I was utterly disgusted at the only modern brown girl hip hop representation I could look up to was some surgically enhanced, Black Barbie with a plethora of wigs. I know. What level of ain't-shit? But now that I'm a teensy bit older and I've come to understand intersectionality, pro-choice and actually read and listen to the things that Nicki has to say, I'm in love with her. Nova also accounts for how you can stan for someone and not completely agree with everything they say or do and that is all right. The comments section is fantastic, by the way.
3. Dope Saint Jude's Keep In Touch Video
Thanks to this lovely Elle article, I just discovered my latest obsession. And, ah, another South African girl making it happen. Dope Saint Jude is a subversive and dynamic rapper from Cape Town with one of the best overall aesthetics I've seen in a long time and on top of that she's an inter-sectional feminist and her bars are sick. The video is amazing. She makes use of Gayle, gay slang mostly used by coloured people in apartheid, makes use of all too familiar South African landscapes and motifs, such as those Telkom payphones, sportys and Nik Naks. There's been a tidal turn in South African music lately and I'm really excited that local is actually really lekker.
I don't know if there is a God but she's doing something right in a world where Amandla Stenburg and Willow are best friends and there's this interview that exists between Amandla and Tavi Gevinson. You'll know Amandla from The Hunger Games, Sleepy Hollow and more recently, her Don't Cash Crop My Cornrows video. Willow is an angel from a different planet, sent here to bring us sweet music and lovely tweets. And Tavi, oh my god: duh.
Read the interview, published something like a year ago where Tavi and Amandla speak about feminism, Rookie and the industries. Expect cool quotations like,
"I feel like there’s something happening now – a generation of girls around our age, from a similar background of beliefs and ideas, are inspiring and influencing each other, and that’s super exciting to me. A few years ago I would have said, ‘It’s okay if my friends my own age don’t get it, because I have a bunch of adult, professional friends who do get it.’ But that’s kind of sad, because I need friends my age too." - Tavi
"...but I feel like even though the world feels big and intimidating, it’s almost calming to realise that even within the smallest thing, like a cell, there’s an infinity. And you’d think that wouldn’t be calming, that it would be disconcerting, but actually it just makes me feel that there’s an organisation between everything in the world." - Amandla
5. I SAID, "BITCH WHERE???"
'Nuff said.
What else has everyone been curating off the Internet this week?
Can you still want a big booty ho when you're already one? Well, in between stints as a cranky, 70 year old man burdened by back pain and the memories of better times, anyway. I can't say I am all that crazy about being another step closer to not being a teenager anymore (and this is my last year of Forever according to the school system and Tavi). I am, however, trying to console this drying valley of bones with the notion that in five years, I'll only be 22 and that means I'm still pretty young. "Think of all the people who will be eighty-three in five years," I tell myself. "You've still got the world at your fingertips." I say. "Stop yelling at the kids loitering on our lawn," my brother exclaims.
To get in the elderly birthday spirit, I made a little Polyvore wishlist. Man, I haven't done one of these in a while. Mostly because it will take about seven months to three years before I actually get anything off of it. May I redirect you to this wishlist I made on the 23rd of August, TWENTY THIRTEEN. I have only recently acquired the wide brim hat, Celine tote, platform trainers and jelly sandals. It is now Star Date: WAY TOO FREAKIN' LATE.
But it's OK because today, I've made a new wishlist.
THIGH HIGH BOOTS (or anything leather and over-the-knee) In all my dreams of the cool teenager I'd grow into as a sapling, they always involved thigh-high, leather boots with a pointed toe and simple court heel that would erase all evidence of skin on my legs. They would be paired Lucy Liu in Charlie's Angels style with a leather pencil skirt and a hot boyfriend. Oh, kids and their crazy dreams.
FLARED/BOOTCUT PANTS/JEANS Don't @ me. I could just really do with a good pair of bright orange flared trousers or wax denim in the bootcut with a side of fries and skipping calf day at the gym.
OBNOXIOUSLY LUXURIOUS BRIGHTLY COLOURED SHAGGY FAUX FUR JACKETS BECAUSE I AM COOKIE LYON AND THE STREETS AINT MADE FOR EVERYBODY
PHARRELL x ADIDAS SUPERCOLOUR I remember when I was in primary school and my sister was on the cusp of adolescence how she and her friends were ready to commit murder for some kicks with the rubber shell toe, the famous trio of stripes and the automatic implied gang$ta status. Pharrell's range comes in over 50 colours and I want every colour. Imagine being able to match your shoes to anything from your lipstick, eyeshadow, hair, car, lack of ambition and soul. Every day.
A NEW iPHONE My iPhone and I are at a bit of a standpoint right now. After two glorious years together, it could no longer take all the accidental slips, trips and falls and the screen has finally cracked. But, of course, these things can never be half-assed with me so as of this day my iPhone now stands with a gaping, shard bordered hole where the home button used to be.
NIKE AIRMAX THEAS But at R1500+ a pair, these will remain a wish.
WHITE HAIR AND BABY BANGS I want Gabourey Sidibe's platinum, Beyonce's fringe length and maybe a little colour at the bottom. I'm not sure I can trust anyone in Johannesburg to do this justice at the right price (which would be dirt cheap). A girl can dream, right?
I'm going to spend the next four days holding tightly onto my fading youth and overeating. For everyone who hasn't had their birthday yet, what are you lucky whippersnappers hoping to receive?
The 70s are back and its bigger and badder than ever. You probably haven't noticed due to its super subtle influence on the Spring 2015 collections in New York and London. It takes a super trained ear to hear the slight, *judging you* whispers of Marcia Brady all over Derek Lam's suede panelled skirts, Dries Van Noten's minimal use of silk and BCBG's flared pants. While I love middle partings, giant sunglasses and floppy hats as much as the next blogger brat, I was really hoping that the really popular 90s revival would lead to an even more popular early 2000s repentanance. You know, a decade I can really echo sentiments of "back in my day" and actually get on my Tumblr pretense, "only 2000s kids will know what [assorted shit probably featuring heelies] is".
Ever since chokers, velvet and those giant Fresh Prince puffy jackets came back, I hoped that my mom was insane for attempting to insist I purge my closet of the frilly mini-skirts, furry collared tops and jersey skirts that were the light of my youth. Sadly, Jackie Burkhart isn't trying to let that happen. Well, I say NAY.
"But, Khensani," you begin. "The 2000s were gross." Well, shut up.
Listen, you're too focused on the excessive amount of belts, scarves and butterfly clips to actually recognise what was the greatest sartorial decade ever. Yes, we're all a lit bit turned off by super low cut Ambercrombie skirts and high rise thongs and all the weird shit people used to bedazzle all over their jeans and don't get me started on velour tracksuits.
What about the super ghetto fabulous application of faux fur to anything and everything?
Or the absolute experimentation in all things crop top? I'm talking one shoulder, no shoulders, straps, weird things that just ended in a triangle above your navel and a very (worrying) supply of halter tops.
And don't even get me started on the rise of metallics:
Also, along with V-necks that kept getting deeper than French existentialism, it was arguably the greatest time for the OG socialites (DUIs and public lack of underwear included); Nicole, Paris and Lindsay.
Don't try to tell me Lizzie McGuire wasn't everything either.
Or pretty much anything by Gwen Stefani (cultural appropriation aside).
And Lil Kim.
And this happened.
Also: Gossip Girl, headbands, tights and coats, man.
No lie: the 2000s got very messy very often but it was also the most fun I ever remember in fashion. There was this lack of inhibition in terms of hemlines, materials, lace-ups, colours. Not to mention the absolute carefree Black girls on the rise; Lil Kim, Eve and Missy Elliot to name a few. I don't think there was anything as aesthetically exciting as one of their music videos. To hell with eyes over lips or lips over eyes: accentuate whatever you want to accenuate.
The 2000s were free. It just seemed like the funnest mish mosh of past decades and modern clothing. It was wearing all your favourite items at once and spending your Bring It On DVD pack money on the overpriced criss-cross C&C California tank tops because Lauren Conrad had three.
February is always a really difficult month. You realise, once again, that you can't keep throwing so much money because "New Year, New You", Valentine's Day is pretty awful (especially since you already threw away so much money in December), Fashion Week(s) sucks and your resolutions/plans/hopes has been thrown off by Reality and all the things you have to catch up on.
I think that's why March is such a blessing. You can finally take a breather, prepare for upcoming vacation time, the arrival of winter (layering makes me so happy and, also, Drake weather) and change up your life.
I finally gather the courage to crawl up from under all my art homework and get my hair cut, as well as experiment with some bangs which a recent article on Man Repeller convinced me was an essential to every young woman experience ever. My friends, who helped me rescue the hack job originally done to my head, did not agree.
Top: H&M | Skirt: H&M (by accident, I swear) | Jacket: Better Half | Bag: Zara
I wore this last weekend when I went Glitter Betty sourcing and Melville exploring with a friend I hadn't seen in forever. It was so refreshing to not spend all day making body chains and embroidering Drake lyrics onto crop tops (don't ask).
(Left to right:) Lines from Locket by Kilo Kish, Wednesday Night Interlude by Drake and Weekend in Atlantis by Jaden Smith
First things first, you're going to need a lot of red lipstick and green filters. I suggest MAC's Ruby Woo - a lipstick so strong that it can withstand eating, drinking and the energy from wack bitches for up to twelve hours. In terms of filters, I find that VSCOCam's C1 is mad decent.
Next, you're going to develop a nonchalant glare that you'll only use for photos and people who can buy you burgers because of how extremely enchanting you'll appear.
To entice more members of society into buying you more burgers, you will also need to only indulge in tie-and-go hairstyles (like the bun, pictured above, that I put up and left in place for four days), super delicate jewelry and songs sung in falsetto (see: Lolawolf).
Never be more than three meters away from plant life. You know how you should 'trust no bitch'? This doesn't apply to tress. They are our only ride-or-dies.
Only wear light, floaty fabrics in the colours that remind you of flowers (or actual florals) and only ever be seen outside when there's a breeze. You must keep up the appearance of being an ethereal otherworldy being made of magic. People always buy burgers for people who look like they're floating.
Pink socks.
Take an obscene amount of super moody I-look-like-I'm-really-mad-that-I-have-to-take-selfies-but-being-this-magical-is-difficult-and-I-need-to-document-this-for-future-generations selfies.
And there you have it: you are now almost as dramatic as I am in these pants! Good luck, don't '@' me as to why being dramatic seems to have a lot to do with getting free burgers and always get pickles on those buns!
My top is a dress from Better Half (who now ships to the UK!), I taught myself (haha, so many Internet tutorials) how to sew these flares and I'm wearing platforms from somewhere in Istanbul. All my jewellery, except for my cuff, is stuff I made for Glitter Betty(email if you're interested in some, check them out here on Glitter Betty's Instagram or, here, on Facebook).
Tomorrow is the day after Friday, the 13th! How is everyone celebrating?
My life's turning into one long Jaden Smith ballad and it's a little trippy because I haven't slept in three days and I don't know how to count minutes but, wow, it's so good.
You don't think about how many things distract you or how much nothing you're accumulating until everyday you're doing everything and now there's always something and anything to do. My friend texted me the link to Jaden Smith's new album(?) (EP?) (great American novel?) on Friday and I've been a state ever since. I redecorated my room, taught myself some Photoshop, caught up on my journal work (both personal and Art) and made like 38380402 chokers and body chains for Glitter Betty. I also am finally up to date with Supernatural and I don't understand why there was a time I ever wanted to not be busy.
It's like on E!'s Fashion Bloggers when Margaret is like, "All I ever do is work and school." And then she mentions something about a boyfriend that obviously flew over my head.
Last year I printed out a couple of text messages from my friends and kept them above my bed but I preferred them around my mirror now, where I'll be forced to interact with them everyday.
Photo of my mom at a party back before I was born - so, like, hella nineties, man // Hamsa body chain over a Mr Price white lace bra I bought purely for Tumblr feels.
Flamingo and palm tree pendants from Mr Price and an Accessorize 'Make Your Own' necklaces strung over a wire hanger ("NO MORE WIRE HANGERS") // Elephant neckalce and gold bracelet from the Turkish Bazaar over a Van Gogh postcard from the time I went to the Van Gogh museum in Amsterdam // a Petra Collins photo on some red gumpaper from my old visual journal // Left to right: photo by Petra Collins, photo by Paul Ward and a photo from the Swedish House Mafia concert two years ago.
Top: Cotton On. Skirt: Glitter Betty. Shoes: charity shop (for R50 [$5] at a charity shop and they're genuine leather) (!!!). Chokers: Glitter Betty
I strongly doubt I'm going to be able to keep my wall this pretty for very long since I suck at keeping my room looking like anything other than a neglected charity shop. Anyway, what's everyone been up to? Any tips for not being such an organised mess?
