#Clothes

This jumpsuit love story began eight months ago, when I booked a Caraci experience on Airbnb to celebrate my birthday. Thorsten and I spent a glorious day in the Joburg CBD, shopping for African print fabric, learning how to sew, hanging out in the city, and having fabulous jackets made to our exact measurements.

I’ve developed a great interest in clothes, as most of you know, especially locally designed and thrifted clothes. And clothes-swapping – the act of exchanging clothing items with others, rather than buying new or second-hand clothes – is like thrifting on steroids. We’ve all got clothes that we don’t want or simply don’t wear anymore…Why pay money for new ones when you can trade for them instead? This is the theory behind Swap Movement.

I’m obsessed with Joburg thrifting (see here, here, and here) and the more I shop second-hand, the more I realize it’s almost never necessary to buy new things. There are so many great places in Joburg to shop for used clothing, furniture, jewelry, shoes, housewares – everything you can imagine. The quality is usually better than buying new and the prices are cheaper, even for amazing vintage stuff, if you’ve got some patience and know where to look.

I can’t remember the exact moment when I became aware of veldskoens, a.k.a. vellies. These leather foot coverings – somewhere between a shoe and a boot – have always been prolific in rural South Africa, lining the shelves of padstals (farm stalls), small clothing shops, and famers’ co-ops. I would often see them and think: Those are nice shoes. I should buy a pair.

I recently joined the Rand Club, which holds a couple of black-tie events each year. When it came time to attend our first fancy function, the Club’s 135th-anniversary gala, Thorsten and I considered his black-tie options. He didn’t own a tux, we didn’t like the idea of renting one for one night, and Thorsten isn’t really a conventional black-tie kinda guy. We decided to turn this chore into an adventure and go to downtown Joburg for a funky, custom-made suit.

Almost ten years ago, I did an exhibition of photos I shot in Maboneng and Jeppestown, two adjacent neighborhoods in downtown Joburg. I had nearly forgotten about this exhibition (which you can read about here). But then a week ago I received an Instagram message from Abdullah Dajee, owner of a men’s clothing and shoe shop in Jeppestown called City Hall (which is also known as City Outfitters or City Hall Outfitters).