Partially to demonstrate my point, partially due to the fact that good ol' Jemma is in Cape Town while I'm cameraless and in Joburg for the holidays.

Anyway. I'm currently in my brother's bedroom, wearing 90% borrowed clothing in the form of his size 9-10 'sweatpant shorts' and a, relatively cool, faded blue vintage anorak that used to belong to my dad. I guess I can't exactly call the anorak borrowed anymore, as I've claimed it for my self.
I'm wearing all this random stuff because I tried the whole 'packing light' thing which means I can't waste clothes chilling indoors watching TV. But yeah, I'm bumping some Toro y Moi and drinking a can of coke and reveling in the sweet aftermath of the Yves Saint Laurent biopic I just watched (also wowzers my french is quite shocking now).

But yes. personal style. That cutsie little way we put our clothes together that makes us all different, or the same.

That wonderful evolution of aesthetic from the time when we stop dressing in matching sibling outfits and first get to choose what we wanna wear, to now.


That's an intruiging-ass journey- filled with embarrassing legging-skirt combos, pumps, Ama Kip Kip shirts and bootleg jeans... Cringing now as I even type some of the phrases, but it's fine because I know  I didn't float in that ocean of trash clothing alone. In fact I'm pretty sure all of the kids who were pre-adolescent in the age of High School Musical and Grade 5 discos were right there with me. Drowned maybe? Or perhaps chilling on lilos of self adoration and admiration of personal style. Surely we didn't look in the mirror and see horrendous outfits, coz why would we wear them if we did?

We truly did believe we looked cool and that we were quite good at this whole fashion thing. Our sartorial eye did not extend to a decade later, now, where even photos make us want to spontaneously combust.

But that kinda brings me to what I'm getting at here.

What about now??? What are we doing?

Are the choices we're making now going to haunt us later? Are we always going to love our current 80s and 90s vintage and skate culture influenced, bad bitch, Topshop-Joni-loving versions of self?

It's probably an inevitable "no"-which is kinda scary- but maybe also a good thing.

I'm learning to appreciate the glory of the stereotypically "dark times" of the early 2000s, coz I really do believe Lizzy and Raven looked quite cool back then relative to the times. I'm starting to appreciate the evolution and cycle of beauty perceptions that see us now reverting to the style of the 70s (which were probz hated at the time by the fashionistas of the 80s), and I'm slowly but surely coming to terms with the idea of cringe going back to cool, with more and more people starting to re-rock their bootlegs and ballet flats in new revolutionary ways.

Our styles are growing and changing and swaying from minimalism to maximalism and everything in between at an ever growing pace. And you know what, I'm cool with that.






Ever notice how adults' dress sense starts to fluctuate a whole lot less as they get older, like a graph reaching the constant point of its gradation? That's also an interesting one for me.

There's a beautiful process that happens amidst all this trend changing hullabaloo where your style begins to slowly refine itself till your fashion "vibe" is firmly established and eventually felt by all around you

When is that going to happen? Has it already happened without me noticing, and if it hasn't, what aspects of my current style will be carried into Refined Fifi's adulthood? Into yours?

What will eventually make my style me? Your style you?

Photography by Justice Machaba