Just the other day I was writing my last paper of Broadcasting Production III, an easy paper I must say and one of my class mates came to me and said, “ you know, I really want to meet your boyfriend.” Yes I do have one luckily enough. She went on to say, “I want to see how he dresses, does he love fashion like you do?” Blushing, I flew his kite for him and conceitedly said, “well he loves fashion more than I do actually,” which is true. My man loves fashion as in, always on trend and his taste is a little, bit expensive, but hey show me a man who has great fashion sense and who doesn’t splurge a little more.
This class mate of mine held the slowly-becoming-interesting conversation by applauding, “ well that’s great because it’s a weird thing to see couples who are utterly contrary when it comes to fashion. It’s even worse when the guy loves fashion more than the girl.”
I waved a smile and she gave me a compliment for my great fashion sense. I get those a lot. See, last year in my second year in varsity I was accoladed with the Student Choice Award’s Trend Setter of the Year 2012 and trust me it was a big deal. It was more significant than the Broadcasting Student of the year award. Fashion has always been part of my life.
Raised by a grandmother who fully clad up for going to bed, it was a given that that was going to have a huge fashion and style influence on me. My grandmother was an extremely clean, stylish and very Victorian woman who believed in looking good and neat. She used to say going to bed without washing your face and feet is bad behaviour and only men are allowed to do that.(Well my grandfather disputed that.)
So I grew up loving fashion a lot. I know this will sound a little bit cliché but I was a little bit of a tom boy growing up. I grew up delimited by boys and we will play football in my grandparents’ farm in Swaziland. When it rained we will go out and play with mud in the rain and nail polish and “staff” were never on my mind back then.
To me beauty was what my grandmother was. So when I was around 11 I started seeing myself differently and believe me you it was not puberty, see I’m part of the generation that actually went to puberty at 13 not 9 like this new generation.
With going to church and having to wear dresses every Sunday, the girly girl within me awoken and I started to see the beautiful, pretty things in life. I started to appreciate watching my mother put on Ponds, at that time I loved how her hands moved delicately around her face when she was applying it. I knew right then that I wanted to use Ponds too but I had to wait till I was 16.
My grandmother was very Victorian, she wore heels to church. It was a long distance from our place to church but she walked that distance in those heels with conviction and you will never hear her complain about paining feet. They did pain I think, it’s just that she was always quick to take care of them by massaging them every night. Something we don’t do because we believe the only place to massage our feet is in beauty spas.
My grandmother’s two door wardrobe had beautiful clothes, I remember a brown long fur coat and she only wore it on special occasions, winter. Her wardrobe was filled with pastels, ruffles, lace, silk, and tribal prints.
Thinking about it now,, if it had existed today, it was going to make Lela Rose run for her money. Everything inside that wardrobe was girly and pretty, and she had lots of scarves which she wore every day, regardless of the weather.
My populist grandfather on the other hand was a Bruno Mars of his time. He had swag like that. He was the cleanest old man I’ve ever seen in my life. I remember those Sunday mornings, (he never went to church) where he will sit outside and be in awe of his huge farm and then take black sheen to dye his hair. His hair was growing white and he didn’t want to look old.
After dying his white hair, he would take the longest bath a man is ever allowed to take and gear up with his vintage, jazzy suits. He always had a knobkerrie with him; I think it was an accessory, a dangerous one.
He carried it with him all the time. And I think, looking back, I’ve learned something from them vis-à-vis having that one item that make you stand out. For my grandmother it was a scarf which was her statement piece and for him it was the knobkerrie. For me it’s the colourful lip stick and pearls. I can’t function properly without bright lips, for me they add colour to my smile and brighten up my face. For my grandmother, the scarf might have been a symbol of respect as most black women did that, but she turned it into a fashion statement piece and every time when she wore it, she wore it with delicacy, élan, and sumptuousness.
My grandfather on the other hand might have had a stick as a weapon of protection but it turned into a fashion accessory. Nelson Mandela once said the walking stick he carries with him is not a symbol of him growing old but it’s a fashion trend. Well we know how stylish Mandela is.
My grandparents were married for more than 40 years before death did them apart within a period of 3 months. But they were different individuals who had everything in common from fashion to the way of life but yet lived it differently from the other.
They both loved fashion, my grandmother was very Victorian and grandfather very vintage and soulful. They both believed in looking good and didn’t just invest only money in it but time and love. And to me that made them a great fashion couple. Together they looked seamlessly well dressed and I don’t remember even once my grandmother choosing an outfit for her choosy husband but yet when they were both done dressing up they looked so fitting and toning as if one brain had styled them.
That’s a power fashion couple.
So my class mate reminded me of that and looking at it today, most celebrities actually do come across as power fashion couples easily. For them it might be because they have stylists who take care of their clothing but there’s an element of that. Look at the stylish Obamas, I might not agree with anything they do politically but the way they dress comes across as well primed and meditated.
For me that’s one of the things that make a good power couple. We have to be different people but yet fit in the puzzle of life and the way we go about in that life. I don’t want to be wearing a pencil dress and my man wearing sweat pants. No, that’s not acceptable.
As a couple, (not that my advice is credible), but you at least need to try look differently-similar. I’m not saying wear denim to denim just like Justine Timberlake and Britney Spears once did once upon a time, but do be in the same page. This means sporty=sporty, classy=classy, vintage=vintage.
Hence I love men who wear chinos because they make it easy for a girly girl like me to wear anything and still look incorporated. Of course you may disagree but my class mate agrees with me.
