Today is just a quick pop in. It’s been a very long week so far (and yes I am aware that it is ONLY Tuesday). I just want to speak briefly about my Sunday outfit.
I recently picked up this sleeveless T on sale at CottonOn and I now want to wear it all the time. It is a little big, but I like the effect it has. I have very few casual t-shirts that I can wear to varsity and so I get very excited when I find a new one especially one that looks even slightly vintage like this one. There is also something, an indescribable feeling, that attracts me to those parrots. There are two main kinds of love for clothing: The kind that exists when you see a beautifully crafted, one of a kind, amazing item that will stand out anywhere and then there is the love that you feel when you have found an item that, yes may be ordinary and common, but fits perfectly into your style in a way that can’t be explained. This T-shirt fills the latter.
The only thing I am going to say about the skirt is that I wore it out of some mental defiance to the weather and the limitations it has placed on my wardrobe… this was a bad idea. I regret it and have apologised to the weather for disobeying its almighty judgement – who knows maybe it has better taste than I do.
I do have to make a special mention to my shoes. These make a regular appearance on the blog and I honestly do wear them continuously. These were bought for no more than R60 from Pick and Pay (I’ll give you a moment to let that sink in). They are awesome camo, canvas boots that go with everything and have an undoubted durability. I get compliments on them all the time and people always react surprised when I inform them of the origin. These shoes were in fact my sisters but I was unable to find another pair. So yes I was prepared to buy them from my own sister because I love them so much. These are one of the most important staples in my cupboard.
I have this ever growing list of adventures that I’ve been on and new things I have learnt that I want to share with you but sadly I have this little thing called school which is taking up a lot of my time and I am still trying to find balance (it is debatable that I will ever find balance although I will continue to try). So look out for some cool Cape Town inspired posts coming up but for now I would like to show you the first outfit post that I have put together since coming to Cape Town.
This look…
There are quite a few important elements to it. Yes I do know the mostly black thing is becoming a bit of a trend with me and honestly speaking I think it is going quite well. As you can see one of the major transformations Cape Town has had on my style is that I now wear shorts. Hmm… My dismissive regard for the item of clothing has not really changed but for the practicality that the weather here demands I have been forced to invest in such clothing. See in Cape Town it gets hot, very very VERY hot. Ordinarily I would deal with this by digging out my skirts and dresses but alas the next hurdle which this city has is the wind and so unless I am in the mood for sharing my underwear colour with all my peers I have to resort to shorts. Now these aren’t too bad, they are well made, black (an important feature these days), they aren’t short shorts and they aren’t too tight on my legs to make me feel self-conscious about it. I may just go back and buy this style in every colour.
But alas there is more. See Cape Town weather also has the flaw of being particularly indecisive. So on almost everyday so far I have encountered temperatures of all the seasons. So jerseys have become my best (and worst) friend. I always have one with me so that when the cold hits I will be prepared but it is so annoying that I have another item which I must carry around with me all day and make sure I don’t lose (by the way let’s give three cheers because I haven’t lost anything yet). This cardigan was one I grabbed from Cotton On and the only clothing item I have bought in Cape Town so far. I love the layered effect and the change in length as well as the hood. I think it gives both the jersey and any outfit it is worn with, more character. The jersey goes with pretty much everything so it accompanies me to university almost every day.
I must put in a quick word for the accessories of that day. I don’t know if you have noticed but I like watches and this one is often on my wrist. It is a very cool, antique/steam-punk styled watch that my cousin sent me from Japan. It is hand made and so completely original which I love. The necklace is a beautiful present from a friend and I love it. I love the chunky metal combined with the delicate idea of flowers and it too has this remarkable ability to add that extra touch to any outfit. Also and probably most importantly is the glasses. I GOT NEW GLASSES, and this is the first time you are probably seeing them. They are very retro looking and I can not get over how unusual they are. Many people have stopped and asked me about them, or asked me about myself and then acknowledged that they approached me because of the glasses so lets admit that they are a win.
I must admit that this was’t my most interesting of looks but it did hold some crucial bits of information. It’s a comfortable, practical and doesn’t look to bad so I will keep it around for a while still.
I hope you enjoyed.
x J
(I am trying to make my blogs more personal so I am going to try sign off like this every time)
I’ve always found myself attracted to the worlds of creativity whether it be music, drama, dance, art (etc) I’ve tried my hand at all that I could, ending up much better at some areas than others and so although I still love to watch and listen to music and dance I spend more time in the drama and art arena because it come more natural to my own self. At my school both drama and art are offered as subjects and so when it came to choosing it would be probable to assume that I would take both but alas I couldn’t because I have interest in quite a few spheres so I was forced to choose. It was an extremely difficult decision but I settled on continuing with art while maintaining my drama passions out of school.
And so I began the rigorous three years of senior art which I must admit tested my very soul more than any other subject ever could but it was worth it. I love art and by the doing the subject I was able to find myself in it.
In matric, along with your final papers which you must prepare for, you also do practicals in certain subjects and obviously the very nature of art dictates that a major part of your final mark must come from a prac. So many months before exams the IEB (Independent Examination Board – the group that sets our exams) releases a theme to which every private school matric art student must do a work. Ours was “Self/Other”… a horrible theme. I looked at it and groaned. I had no idea what to do and I certainly didn’t want to do a self-portrait because I have done far too many of those and so I felt stuck. The point of art however is too be creative and I suppose the seemingly boring theme worked to push us to be creative and so I formed an idea.
I am currently trying to figure out my place in the world as a woman and how I feel about feminism, sexism and such topics so I decided to use the work to delve into these ideas and so from almost the beginning I knew that I would do a feminist piece and look at how women’s “selves” are defined. Something else which a love in particular about art is the way a viewer will look at an artwork and see something different to another viewer depending on their personal views and so I wanted to somehow incorporated this idea of seeing yourself in an artwork in a strong way. The third thing I decided I wanted to make a part of the work was audience participation. I made a puzzle out of an earlier work of mine and I had loads of fun making it and when other people actually got to touch and feel and play with the art work the joy that it bought them was completely worthwhile for me as an artist to see and so I wanted to take that and bring it into this work.
There are some rules to making art for the IEB: it can’t be plagiarism, it has to be your own ideas and work and there has to be at least two works, one piece can be anything and then it must be accompanied by a thematic drawing which has to be a piece showing drawing skills (although the word drawing like everything else in art is often reinterpreted quite creatively by the students).
I didn’t do two works… I did a great deal more.
My main piece was three works and they focused on the idea that society will see a woman and judge her stereotypically because of certain traits. Now I am well aware that this also happened to men but I do believe that it is stronger and it has a greater effect against women. The work was called “I see you in me”, and consisted of three woman each drawn life-sized of their portraits. The first was ‘The hipster’ as I like to call her. She is a young woman with tattoos and piercings. The background is a triangle pattern based on the hipster triangle. I find that often much more so than men a woman will be looked down on, dismissed and abused because she has tattoos. Most people automatically create a judgement based on those tattoos before they even know the woman beneath them. The next work was ‘The businesswoman’ she is a black businesswoman. I find that woman in a commercial environment especial black woman in a country like South Africa are judged to be hard, cold, less than their male counterparts, having gotten their position through alternative ways (etc). I got the background pattern from one of the patterns on the new South African R200 note design. It is both a traditionally based pattern but also symbolic of the business world. The last was a young Muslim girl who I referred to as ‘The religious woman’. I feel like women involved in specific religions are judged both by those within and out of their religions are expected to full very specific roles. I feel like this is even more dramatic currently for Muslim women due to the current social views and prejudice rocking the globe.
I see you in me
Piece three
50cm by 70cm
Pencil, Ink, Mirror and Paper
I see you in me
Piece two
50cm by 70cm
Pencil, Ink, Mirror and Paper
I see you in me
Piece one
50cm by 70cm
Pencil, Ink, Mirror and Paper
I place broken mirror over the faces of the women in all three works so that when you look into the work you literally see yourself reflected in the work. This was to help incorporate the self or other theme on more than one level. I was already discussing the idea of women’s selves and others’ judgements but now I could bring in the idea that you can see yourself literally reflected in the art work and hopefully this would help the emotional reflection in the work. I think the mirror added extra depth and became another fun element to the work.
I then moved on to the thematic drawing. I did two pieces. One was a fun piece which was rather uncomplicated and didn’t require much work on my part. I was inspired by an incredible audience participation piece called Measuring the Universe by Roman Ondak. This was an installation in the Modern Museum of Art in New York where people could go and measure themselves. A simple idea true but it turned out incredibly. I wanted to do something which would require a similar involvement from my viewers. So I posed the question “What is a woman?” and the audience could then write on the page what they thought the answer was. I was excited about the work and curious as to what the reaction would be. I was, I must admit, disappointed. I go to an all-girl school and overestimated the young women’s intellectual connection both with feminism and art and the work turned into a bit of a joke to some people. It still came out with interesting results. There were the obvious words such as “strength”, “virtue”, “love” and so forth which appeared many times. There were then more modern words such as “swag”, “Beyonce”, and “Bootay” which I hadn’t expected. Some girls also chose to write their own names for whatever reason which was intriguing. One of the most notable things for me was that some people had written negative names (fine by me as I do believe a woman is not perfect) but someone had gone and meticulously crossed out every negative word. I found it odd that someone would be so disturbed by the idea of our imperfections that they had tried to erase them. I still feel the work had more potential than was reached by my school peers.
What is a woman?
35cm by 120cm
Pen and Paper
What is a woman close up
The other piece was far more complicated. Going on the idea of my puzzle I decided I wanted to make another work with game like qualities. I remembered playing games when I was very little with blocks where each block would have different features and depending which way round you displayed them you could have different objects, animals or characters. I wanted to apply this to the feminist work. I decided I would make a giant cube of faces which could be turned to create different faces. I started by drawing four square works of four different girls’ faces (one, I admit, a self-portrait). When these were done a photographed them and printed the faces out in various sizes. I then made three boxes of different sizes. Then I collaged the photos onto the boxes to create faces reminiscent of Picasso. I was originally concerned about the collage effect but ended up liking it… I am not completely sure why. This piece I called “Step Right Up” and the idea was that you could ‘step right up and make your own woman’. I collaged the tops and bottoms of the boxes with various words out of magazines which had been biased against women. I was amazed at how I found word after word, article after article which told women to act, dress and look a certain way to fit into the world, to be good enough for men. I was angered by how easy it was to make this collage. I wanted the box to point out how the media and others end up defining the role a woman must fill. I wanted my viewer to step forward and have fun making a woman’s face but also realise when they stepped away how they might have seen or participated in this in real life. I wanted this work to be intriguing and fun for my audience but I also wanted to leave them with a deeper message.
Step right up
42cm by 42cm
Cardboard and print
Step right up
42cm by 42cm
Cardboard and print
Over all I think my matric work was a success. I don’t say this to be boastful but more because I really enjoyed making the work. I enjoyed the experimental part of it and what I could learn while making the work. I still am confused in the land of feminist but I was very enlightened while making this work and I hope I managed to enlighten at least a few of my viewers.
Please note that these are my own works and my own ideas.
Now I am generally not hugely into pop but one of my current favourite songs in Meghan Trainor’s hit All about that bass. It isn’t just the catchy tune which draws me to this song but also the message of it. I am not alone in this but I definitely do have an opposing view to a lot of people. The overall idea of the song is that you shouldn’t determine beauty on size. This has sent people into a total frenzy. Trainor at face value takes the side of big girls, the girls who think they are fat and my generation, who has been brainwashed into to believing skinny is beautiful, has taken huge offence to it. According to some Trainor is skinny bashing, she is just as bad as those who make fun of fat people, she is simply a bitch and it goes on. I was really surprised to hear all this and to be exposed to it on such a large scale. The reason I was surprised is because this so called skinny bashing happens every day to fat people and not just fat people, a minor glimpse of cellulite and a girl may as well hide herself in her room and cut herself off from the world forever. But I have not once on my Facebook seen any anger at this. This is possibly because the majority of the girls on my friend list are skinny, toned, overly concerned with exercised and followers of the ‘skinny is beauty’ movement (this is generally a subconscious thing). Otherwise they are girls who are worried with their weight. Do you know why they don’t stand up for themselves, why I don’t stand up for myself, on Facebook… because it is scary.
I have brought up the idea that weight doesn’t matter into conversation on numerous occasions and I am never taken seriously unless I am talking to girls who feel similarly about their bodies.
I want to make it clear that I am not fat and I do not think I am fat however I do not have, what media has defined as, the perfect body. I have a big bum, my legs are definitely not toned, I have a muffin top and my belly is not flat. I am, at this stage in my life, happy with my body (this does not mean I am comfortable with it and I do not own a pair of shorts as I feel like people make assumptions about me based on my leg size) but it has taken me a very long time to get to this point. No one has ever called me fat to my face or bullied me because of my weight but it doesn’t mean that society hasn’t made me feel like I am less of person because “I ain’t no size 2”. I go to an all girl school and for my entire life I have been surrounded by girls who talk non-stop about exercise and losing weight. They are disgusted by imperfections and in awe of celebrities with perfect bodies and I sit and listen to this and for a long time i retreated and hid in my shell terrified that if I exposed myself they would laugh and gossip about my slightly-large thighs, my distinct lack of a thigh gap and my non-bikini body. I am intelligent, strong, independent, hard working and much more but I didn’t want to show this to anyone because I was worried about what I looked like on the outside.
I am not the only person who feels this way and that is NOT Okay. This is a serious issue. This problem about focussing on one’s body has not disappeared but for some reason we have given up trying to fight it and now it has gotten worse and when someone does try society reacts negatively.
The main problems people have raised with the song are.
It victimises skinny people. This is not true. This idea comes from when Trainor says “Go ahead and tell them skinny bitches that” but most people fail to listen to the next line, “No, I’m just playing. I know you think you’re fat”. This is where one realizes that Trainor is not actually only representing ‘fat’ girls. She is representing everyone. Women have been subjected by the media to the idea that beauty = skinny. I know girls who are beautiful. They have the slender thighs and flat stomach that I know I don’t have and yet they still complain about their imperfections because we are taught from a young age that we should aim for the “stick figure silicone Barbie doll” look. Trainor is representing those who are not comfortable with their bodies, those who are comfortable but are judged for their size and those who from media pressure or otherwise have worked hard to be skinny or stay skinny. She is opposing what has become a generalized view of what is the appropriate weight. I don’t think she is saying skinny is wrong. She does say “And all the right junk in all the right places” among other things but when saying this she doesn’t specifically say that those who naturally have an athletic build are bad people or not correctly shaped but she is saying she is proud of her body shape. You only have to watch a couple female music videos to see they are very proud of their big boobs and tiny waists. Miley was so comfortable that her tiny little body is the centre of all her music videos but other than the whole lack-of-clothing issue not many people have a problem with it. Trainor simply voiced something which exists in most female music videos (but obviously skinnified). Watch Iggy Azalea’s Work, Grl (and Pitbull’s) Wild Wild Love and pretty much anything by Beyonce to see half naked woman showing off their bodies and they have every right to I just am uncomfortable with the monotonous mould which is created.
Trainor defines beauty by what a guy wants, “Boys like a little more booty to hold at night”. I do think this is the only issue that i will respect to a degree. I do also think though that often women will lose weight to impress a man and a huge part of the movement of losing weight is because it is supposed to be more attractive to guys. If it is a reality more attractive (which I believe it might be especially for young adults) this is because media doesn’t only manipulate the girls into believing beauty=skinny but also shows guys that skinny is more desirable (not being a guy myself I can’t reliably comment on that though) but by saying that guys like bigger girls she effectively defeats this with only one line.
She is playing the victim and this whole weight issue isn’t a issue. This one I think is the most ignorant view out of them all. Please pick up a magazine. The ladies ones – check here for how to lose weight, see inside for how to hide those flabby thighs with the perfect dress, the tabloids – Learn Kim’s weight loss secret, see the celebrities who committed bikini crimes, the men’s – half naked women in adds, on the cover and in the articles itself. If you don’t think this is an issue you really haven’t been paying attention (and I haven’t listed the movies, music videos, advertisement, clothing, TV, etc stereotypes)
For all you haters out there please get over yourself and don’t worry one song (maybe two but Nicki Minaj – Anaconda is really pushing it) is not going to change the world, at least not on its own. You can still find skinny models in top shop, Hugh Hefner still has a house and Jenifer Aniston will still keep her body slim and trim but what the song can do is inspire a couple of young girls who aren’t comfortable with their size that “every inch of you is perfect from the bottom to the top”.
At some South African Schools, including my own, when you get to your last week/term/day/s (depending on the schools’ specifics) of matric (and high school), you get to dress up, play pranks and participate in a manner of different silliness. It is done to relax and have one last group effort of fun and games before settling down to study and celebrates the last days the grade is together as a whole.
Ours began on Friday. We played a number of pranks including cling-wrapping passageways, hiding school bags, disrupting classes to play 30 seconds with younger grades (with the teacher’s permission of course), serenading teachers and having an absolute crazy ball.
The thing which I find most fun about the whole event (other than it becoming acceptable to bunk classes) is the dressing up. We have decided on a different theme for everyday to which we all have to dress up. For our first day we had to dress up as anything which starts with the letter J, T or B. These were chosen as our head girls name is Jess and her deputies are Teffie and Bonnie. It was loads of fun and some girls went to extreme lengths of creativity.
A friend of mine and I went as Thing 1 and Thing 2 (from Dr Seuss’s Cat in the Hat). We wore plain red tops, printed signs off the internet and pinned them to our shirts, borrowed two blue wigs and invested in some large mens working pants (in red of course). I think our look came out successfully but you can decide. The other ideas which my peers came up with were also a myriad of characters ranging from builders, to joggers to pregnant ‘baby mammas’ and ‘township hoes’ and even Jesus.
Below are pictures of some of my favourite looks whether it was because of costume or creativity. (Please excuse the state of some of the photographs, the girls were so excited they just couldn’t stand still.)
A classic dress up pair and ofcourse I always jump at the oportunity to do anything Dr Seuss. This was my look for the day.
Hey if you look like a Barbie why not? although I did think the dog was a bit much (and maybe a bit cruel)
Jack Parrow is an Afrikaans rapper and famous in South Africa for his oversized hat. Excuse the hand gestures but it is definately necessary when representing Parrow truthfully.
All I can say is that this was entertaining. I think a vibrent personality adds a great deal of entertainment to this look.
I thought this idea was cute but classy and practical as well. She wanted to bring mugs of beer to complete the look but decided it might be inapropriate for a school event.
I dont know if she raided her mother’s closet or the nearby second-hand shop but it must have been fun to be a bride for the day. There were other brides but this girl took the cake and won hands down.
This is always a good and classic pair to dress up as.
I thought that the bubble-wrap was funny nd creatice but she did eventually begin to boil under all the plastic and had to take it off. The ballerina was also a cute and simple idea and not so boiling.
You dont need a shop bought ‘princess look’ to be a recognisable disney character.
Township is the name for a specific urban settlement in South Africa and came about during apartheid. These places are still called townships today but are no longer segregated. This group each picked a stereotypical township character to dress up as. This is an entertaining yet uniquely South African dress up idea
I am focussing on her in particular out of the Township Gang because I think this style is on top point and deserves a mention of its own.
This two ideas, especially the beggar, are two ideas which are cheap and easy to create yes come out looking impressive and understandable.
Jack Sparrow is always a good dresss up idea in my opinion. The box: this was a simple yet completely genius idea.
It is always good to have a reminder of how you spent your childhood while saying goodbye to it. As a major teletubbie fan this was nostalgic.
Because we do actually get many of these stereotypical tourists in SA it made this look clever and funny. The Twister I thought was one of the most creative looks and came out with great success.
Baby was one of the most common dress ups but the giant dummy and cap definitely made this look the best one.
Plain Old Glasses 