MrP Pop-Up Store Review

Fashion is an amazing idea, it’s an art and incredibly vibrant industry but it still has its flaws one of which is it’s socio-economic elitism.

All Photos by Refiloe Mokgele (ie All Zuri)

In order to enter into the over-priced world one tends to need to be wearing well known international (international actually meaning western) and expensive brands and this means that because a) I am from ‘Africa’ (ironically the diversity and culture has not yet been used as a source for style inspiration) and b) I cannot possibly afford to live in the top brands, even the ‘everyday’ brands like TopShop and Zara. Because of this, I am not given an equal opportunity to prove myself and hence forth enter the fashion world.

For me fashion is not about the place an item of clothing is from or the expense of obtaining it but rather about the art of styling a particular outfit. This requires creativity, bravery and individualism.
And although it may no longer be the prime focus of the fashion industry or at least something that is drowning in the commercialised aspects, it is what drew me to the industry and what I am determined to keep as the emphasis of my fashion journey.

One of my saving graces as far as actually finding stuff to wear has been MrP/Mr Price.

Mr Price is an interesting place. It has the unique characteristic of reaching almost every single South African which means that its stores contain a variety of different styles… which can sometimes be discouraging.

I along with some of my peers are on the lookout for upcoming and on trend designs that are modern and perceptive but this sometimes leads to frustrating and unhelpful shopping experiences as the general Mr Price store is difficult to work through, crowded and not at all organised…

But…

MrP has come in to change this. MrP is the new name which comes with the redesign of the Mr Price clothing brand and with it the style of the store and the business. The branding is modern and on trend and growing to contest with the alien brands like Cotton On and Factory (for some reason these are all Australian-not sure how Australia got such a firm hold of this market but anyway).

MrP works off a similar theme of being for the youth, being exciting, colourful and creative.

Along with this has been a new emphasis on joining the common trends and supplying the general populous with clothes which mimic the high end brands at a fraction of the cost.

I am very excited about this move by Mr Price and I love how a brand which has been a crucial part of my fashion career is taking a bigger step in joining the industry.

There are two concerns that I do have. Obviously I still want MrP to be accessible to all South Africans and so I hope they maintain their price range even though they have stepped up on their advertising the most important aspect of Mr Price was that it was affordable. On top of this I think as a South African brand they should maintain a connection with the various cultures around it and so I would like to see more South African inspired wear available in their stores.

Also it would be nice to see “made in RSA” in the labels rather than the Chinese equivalent as support for the South African textile and clothing manufacturing industry is desperately needed.

Aside from this the brand has come a long way and I am really excited to see where it goes from here.

One of their new endeavours has been the MrP Pop-Up stores. They are like retail’s version of flash mobs. Small concentrated stores that come out of nowhere.

They only exist for short periods of time to create excitement and knowledge about a brand. MrP has taken advantage of the hipster-life-style found on Long Street in Cape Town and Braamfontein in Johannesburg (but I believe this has since closed) and is targeting the group of fashion forward young people who hang around in the areas. The store has so far been around for one month and is moving into the second with the new month having a different theme to the last. In august the store was 90’s inspired with bell-bottom jeans, grunge chokers, t-shirt crop tops etc. It was fun but had only about ten items in the store in total making the store clean and concise and most importantly easy to shop in. The idea was to focus on a particular trend movement and almost honour it with it’s own personal show. The different themes will move us through the spring to summer fashion period utilising the consistently changing weather and hence dress. The second theme of the store (September addition) which I must admit I haven’t had an opportunity to check out was dedicated to the 2014 winner of the Elle Rising Star Design winner Tamara Cherie Dyson’s limited edition MrP line. This helps create excitement around the brand and works on my previous wish of the brand strengthening its links with South Africa.

When I visited the store I did not thinking I would buy anything and left with a dent in my bank account and three new items of clothing (plus a free necklace!).

The first item and the one I was most excited about was my Suede-Style (just wannabe leather not the real thing) A-line Skirt which made an appearance in my last blog post (Read it here next). This particular style of skirt has taken the world by storm (practically overnight) and every fashion blogger has invested in a version of it (hence why it is so diversely used). Whether it be leather, denim or corduroy everybody is wearing it.

And I was searching for it. Although TopShop quickly introduced it, it was impossible for me to justify the expense and so you can only imagine my joy when MrP had it as a main piece in their first pop-up range.

The second item which admittedly is slightly too big for me (they didn’t have my size but I didn’t want to lose the chance so I went ahead and bought a big size so now I have to live with my decision) is a Maroon Knee Length Side Split Shirt with a high neck and giant slits down each side. The shirt style is also a popular one although usually it is floor length rather than only touching the knees but I do like this alternative length however if I see the traditional t-shirt side-split floor-length piece I’ll be sure to grab (hey MrP wink wink). I feel very grunge/goth in this look and channel my inner dark diva. Also the necklace was a giveaway that the store had with every purchase of 2 or more items which I was very happy to take. It is a play on the stone/crystal trend and comes with a leather string so you can wear it as you will. I opted for a layered choker style because I’ve decided chokers really suit my hairstyle and that’s that.

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The next piece was a bit of risk for me to buy and was a 90s inspired Little Black Dress which they call the Gypsy Dress. It was originally knee-length which I really liked (it has hence for shrunk in the wash and although it is possible that res-washing had something to do with it I’m going to warn you to watch out when washing it if you do decided to get it). It has embroidery detail along the sleeve and body that creates a gap that breaks the stark black. I like this too but am slightly worried about how I am going to wear it in summer when I don’t have black stockings to hide my multi-coloured underwear (oh well – I’ll cross that road when I get to it).

The dress also came in white which had an entirely different vibe just by a colour change but was also pretty. It has large belled sleeves which I am genuinely in love with. I used to hate ‘belled’ things because it reminded me of fairy-type shirts I used to wear in my unfashionable past and I steered away but no more dear friends will I shy away from over-sized sleeves.

I want to turn over a new leaf and start wearing eccentric platforms and teasing my hair to make its volume treble its natural state. I think I am attracted to the rebellious state of mind that 90’s teenagers lived in (or the idealised protest-starter, world-changer, hate-destroyer 90’s kid at least).

Thank you MrP for making some of my fashion dreams an affordable reality and trust me I will be spending many more hours in that store. Also please pretty please correlate your everyday store with these ideals…

“Fashion is a great thing, it’s a way to express who you are” – Zendaya

x J

Off With Her Hair

Off with her hair

I have always said that my hair is connected to my psyche. Yes an odd statement and maybe a little crazy but I promise whenever I make a dramatic change to my hair it effects my lifestyle. Generally this involves taking a pair of scissors (well letting a professional take a pair of scissors) to it. I can’t explain it but the shorter my hair the better I feel. It’s like when I cut off the heavy split locks, I cut off the worries of my life. Okay it’s not that full proof but it’s always the first step to me trying to make my life more positive.

Lately life’s been throwing me a few curve balls and I allowed myself to slowly sink into self-pity (a sad life-destroying hole that aint so fun to be in). And seeing as I put myself there I needed to take the responsibility to get out. So I turned to one of the best ways that I know how to turn myself onto a brighter path and that is by mutilating my brown bob.

Now through my life I have had short hair more than I’ve had it long and so usually when I take such drastic measures it can’t really be classified as brave because I am so used to it. This however was the shortest I have ever gone and with actually having nothing wrong with the bob (except maybe I was bored of it) I actually felt a few nerves for once nevertheless I had told myself to do it and so I couldn’t turn back. Which is how I ended up having one of the shortest hairdos out of all my friends (guys included).

It’s a rather simply pixie cut which I am still getting used to dealing with. I wanted something that was classic yet edgy, that didn’t require a lot of maintenance, which when it grows out will still look reasonable and I still wanted it to be a little feminine.

Yes. I know. It’s short

This is what we came up with. I think it fits the requirements what I am not sure of is whether its fits me. Does the shorter ‘do’ suit me and my personality? I don’t dislike it. I think it’s different and it definitely had the desired effect on my mind but I don’t know if I will stick with it. I am not so sure if I can join the ranks of Ruby Rose, Miley Cyrus or Charlize Theron with my new look but at least I can say I tried right?

One of the other issues it has caused is that with this new (and improved?) and more mature hairstyle I feel like my wardrobe has become boring and inadequate which has had me clutching at the tiny tufts of hair in frustration because I never know what to wear.

Black, White, Red – Great combo

The thing about fashion is- OOH SQUIRREL

Itchy head, itchy head

The other shoes are my sisters #photographer

This particular outfit was born out of irritation and experimentation because I had had enough. I wish I could wear this none stop. I love the jacket-cardigan-scarf-thing (please help me name it) it adds this unusual layer and texture to my looks. The choker is something I have stolen from my sister and is a new trend I am just getting into particularly because I feel like it goes with the hair quite well. I love the classic black and white look and I definitely feel like it is a mature peak in my current style. Also please note I finally got new shoes. They are simple and practical but they look nice. I finally went shopping with a purpose and instead of getting distracted but pretty shirts I told myself I couldn’t leave until I had bought some stylish, flat, user-friendly black shoes… I can not believe that I actually found them. I am moving up in the shoe world.

Comment below and let me know what you think of the new hair… Should I keep it of lose it?

Oh and as I was told by a very wise woman (wink wink) “a change is as good as a holiday” so if youre feeling down and nothing seems to work, maybe it’s time you trimmed that ‘do’. Remember hair is simply an accessory and there really is no need to get to personally attached. IT WILL GROW BACK. Trust me.

x J

Procrastination, Desperation and New Hats

Part one – Procrastination

I’m bored. I’m frustrated and I feel like I’m going insane.

My first university exams started yesterday. A momentous occasion that culminates a semester of hard work and chaos that has taken place over what has felt like a really long week. This also signifies (hopefully) my passing and proving to myself that I may still be an academic (although let’s just reserve judgement until the fallen-from-grace subject of Maths for Engineers is sufficiently over and done with). At UCT, we (lucky souls) get gifted a consolidation week off from lectures before exams to contemplate the meaning of life and to determine just how many files we can organise before accepting that we may actually have to read through the things. Being one of the unfortunate many who had to write on the first day I didn’t really have the luxury of taking time off to regain my senses before starting to study and so I threw myself into it… This ended rather unsuccessfully. Despite the fact that I spent three days doing exercises and past tests, I swear my brain sub-consciously took the time off and point blank refused to take in any information. Along with this I also managed to bring a whole new dimension to the word procrastination despite my good intentions. I re-designed my room, did six loads of washing (but in truth I was running out of clean underwear and nice shirts), I filed for the first time since coming to Cape Town and swept my entire room. So when the opportunity to do ‘work’ for a blog post came up I seized the new challenge (shelving my five kilogram physics text book back into my newly-neat book shelf). There was a slight problem. Due to my so-far-uneffective rebellion against the environmentally unfriendly dryers I had six loads worth of wet washing drying in my room which meant that the majority of my clothes were unwearable. This brings me to the second section…

Part 2 – Desperation

The photos that I ended up taking for this outfit were greatly effected by a series of events. Namely my lack of clothing, the weather and my inability to stop pointlessly injuring myself.

1. Me getting up and looking for an outfit. The only thing I had in mind was the mysterious hat (which you will hear more about) and I was kind of mentally/creatively blocked as far as the rest of the outfit went and every time I had an idea I would remember “oh that pair of jeans is soaking wet”… so I took the screw-this-we-are-going-to-experiment attitude and grabbed my pair of dry stockings… grey ones. Possibly a bad place to start but hey I wasn’t turning back. I couldn’t wear my black boots because they are heeled and one of my culminating injuries was a recent twist of the ankle which my bruised foot is still recovering from so I had to go for my flat brown boots… Yes I know the only people who put grey stockings with brown shoes are schools and I did feel vaguely reminiscent of St Mary’s but the experiment continued. I then took my only mini skirt which I only feel comfortable wearing with stockings and a dry shirt. Yes that was my only nice dry shirt. (sigh, my life seems pretty dismal).
2. We had had in mind a cool alternate stairwell at UCT to do our shoot at but as per predictability, Cape weather was its unpredictable self and the white fluff that had sunk over the mountain decided to open up and cry (possibly on my sad fashion situation) just before we started taking photos so we had to make a new plan. Hence we went to Jammie Plaza (the heart of UCT if you will) and hid between the pillars. In my opinion I don’t think it was that bad of an idea although I had to get rid of a whole lot of pictures because the wind was oh so not elegantly ‘whipping my hair back and forth’
3. Also please note the look of discomfort on my face and tense body language was not because I was trying to go all America’s Next Top Model on it but I had managed, in my brilliance, to injure my neck while doing the terribly hard activity of sleeping and I was in a lot of pain at the time.

Part 3 – The hat

Yay the hat. While actually the whole outfit but I really love the hat. I don’t own any hats (except for one straw one and those sports caps that I got when I was little don’t really count in my mind). I have been looking, searching for an affordable-adorable hat that suits my short hair.

Oh Romeo where art though… (actually I hate Shakespeare… and Romeo

The wind being Capetonian as usual

And…

I found it at a market in Hout Bay. I like that its blue because most people have it in black and I like being different but it does make it slightly less wearable so I do suggest that anyone going for this style contemplates giving in and going for the black but yes if you have short hair… Go Go Go and get one.

Anyway I feel like the hat made the experiment of an outfit wearable plus I don’t usually wear colour-themed clothes but I really liked wearing all (or mostly) blue. It made me feel very grown up.

The coat… how cool is the coat! I really like it and it came from Pick and Pay. Thr hypermarket/supermarket/cheap-food-store-supreme gives me not only my groceries on a regular basis but also a rather hot jacket that I basically wear everyday.

As for the rest of the outfit- I know the skirt is short but as any one who has read anything feministic will know THERE IS NOTHING WRONG WITH SHORT SKIRTS (plus it made me feel sexy and took me out my comfort zone while still be comfortable?) and the shirt, despite the fact that it wasn’t even really a choice looked awesome anyway and besides it was about time it appeared in a blog because I dig it. I love the over-sized, bat-wing, too-much-material, cape-type attitude it has but the collar keeps it together and gives it structure and focus. It’s a really cool shirt and I like wearing it because it makes the child in me feel like she has wings…

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I should be studying

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I hope you liked the post… greatly affected by my the-day-after-writing mind and now you get to see what outfits come out of a desperate Jemma.

Enjoy your week

x J

Beach Days

Hello all! Are you all enjoying the feeling of relief and excitement (false or realistic) that Friday brings? (note this is assuming I manage to get this blog out today). Personally it’s been a long week so I am very happy the weekend has arrived.

I experienced quite a lot during the first couple of weeks of Cape Town which I neglected to blog about so today I am going to tell you about one of the places that I have spent some quality time – the beach. It is to be expected that I would enter the sandy/windy world of beach land considering I am living in a coastal city now and there is a beautiful stretch of coast around Muizenberg where the water is a few mild degrees warmer than the arctic temperatures that make up the majority of Cape Town water which I have landed up at a few times.

Now let me get something straight: I am not a beach person. Cape Town beaches are better than any others because they are cold and windy so people don’t judge you for you negative beach attitude. The thing is though, the Muizenberg beach is beautiful: pretty pale sand, an amazing mountain, blue sea with crashing waves and of course an adorable row of colourful houses which kind of make the beach slightly unreal. This would not be that bad. I think that, even in my ‘beach hater’ existence, I might be able to enjoy these beaches…

But I need to reflect on the situations which I was thrown on these beaches. Firstly it was a UCT orientation event where hundreds of over-excited / hungover students crowded the beach and for about 600 students they supplied 10 umbrellas, maybe 11. I am very pale which means the sun and I are not good friends and this particular day was a very hot day and so in a desperate bid to not end up red for my first week of university I spent the day in the only shady place available… Under the coloured houses (I know I think this may even be the appropriate time to use the word ‘ratchet’ here). Then while my friends were running around doing the physical activities they had available I sat lying under a house looking and feeling like the beach bags that I had been instructed to watch. The view was still beautiful but I cant say I enjoyed it profusely because I felt like an abandoned towel to be honest.

The next time I stumbled onto that beach was for our bonding experience with the Civil Engineering department. We took the train which made me feel like a proper hipster and it also felt less typical tourist like most of the other things I’ve done here. The beach day was completely different. We were put into groups and forced to partake in the physical activities they had planned… How did I feel about this? Well I didn’t enjoy it. I liked meeting the people in my department but I also felt humiliated as I was expected to play numerous ball sports. In a predominantly male course (and it seems that even nerdy boys can catch a ball) sport cannot be played in the noncompetitive, and rather useless manner that the bookworm of a girl I am plays it. I do not understand why whenever bonding is involved the tasks are always physical activities. This is insanely biased and it annoys me because it means that throughout high school and now university I am always disadvantaged when portraying myself to new people. Surely it would be more logical to make us bond over an intellectual activity rather than a physical one after all we all had to be academic to a degree to get into engineering. But NO I played rugby, volleyball, soccer, tug of war and dodge ball (I think I had bruises on my legs for a week after one of my class mates chose me as his victim) and I burnt my nose in the sun! Then I missed a university event that I had been excited to go to so I was not happy.

Looking back on this post I do realise this has been a bit of a rant which was not my initial intention but I do want to give an honest reflection of my view of places. I did think the beach was beautiful and it is one of the nicest beaches I’ve been to in Cape Town and there are a few nice shops to go explore (not as many as Kalk Bay though which will have to be a future blog post in itself) but I didn’t have the best experience there so I am biased slightly against it but if you are in Cape Town and want to relax at the beach and have a nice view that should definitely be on your list of places to go… Just make sure it doesn’t coincide with a UCT event.

Enjoy your weekend

x J

Self or other?

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.