African Fashion Report

I’ve been very neglectful I know but unfortunately I haven’t had great internet availability. So I will have to give a brief summary of what has happened since we left Zimbabwe.


We left Harare ealier than planned as Dave’s course was cancelled so we had to get him back to South Africa quickly so he could do one down there before going back to work. At the same time our flights to Lusaka got postponed to 25th April as Chooks’s work permit hadn’t come through. Once back in Ballito I decided I should pop up to Dubai to see how the family were settling in up there so I left for Dubai on the 13th April for 10days. It was very hard saying good bye to Dave as I don’t like crying in public. As I tried to keep control of my emotions I let Dave do all the talking as I didn’t trust myself to speak. Which is a shame because I didn’t agree with him when he said 8 months isn’t a long time but instead of disagreeing I just let im hold me. I’ve started again now, which is a very good reason not to keep a diary as somethings you just don’t want to have to relive.

Although I was excited at first to see Dubai; I soon became very bored and was longing to be back in Africa. I haven’t really got a lot to say about Dubai apart from the shopping is amazing but depressing if you have no money and no use for the clothes for at least another year.  So instead I am going to entertain you all with my reflections so far on my adventure in Africa.

Before you start thinking that I grew up with a love of animals & that I always wanted to live in the African bush, I will have to put you straight on that. I grew up in Dorset with my two brothers, Tristan and Barty; both of whom are younger than me. The only pets we were allowed were goldfish, which always seemed to die on us and actually I still don’t know what happened to them when we moved from Dorset to Norfolk. Barty always wanted a dog but after we moved up to Norfolk my Mum joined British Airways as cabin crew and we went off to boarding school so there would have been no one at home to look after it. I think it was a lucky escape for our Mother as she hasn’t any love for animals. As to wildlife I loved the outdoors and camping and the beauty of the countryside but apart from being able to identify the most common trees and flowers that was as far as my interest took me. So how I’ve ended up traipsing around the African countryside I hardly know. I guess it’s amazing where love will take you. How cheesey!!

My one passion, which has stayed with me through my teenage years until now is fashion. Before I started spending such long periods of time in Africa I worked for a couple of years as manager and buyer for a boutique called Ruby and Tallulah in Burnham Market. I loved my job, not only did I get to advise people on what to wear all day I got to go to Paris and London fashion weeks. The job was ideal for me but sadly Norfolk didn’t have anything else to offer me and during my time there Mummy and Rick sold our house and moved to South Africa. Loving fashion so much I should have followed a career in London but I’m not a city girl and instead I followed my parents to Africa. In Ballito I met David and for the past couple of years I have gone back to the UK to work during David’s hunting season and then come back to Ballito to see him during his off season. With the decision in mind of trying to find somewhere to settle between the two continents I decided to give it a go in Africa. There wasn’t a job available with the company Dave works for and I wasn’t sure I was ready for Dave to see how useless I would be in the bush and after spending those three weeks with him in Moz I think I made the right decision in looking elsewhere.

But anyway back to fashion. My intention in revealing this to you is that I wanted to give you a fashion report from Africa. You can’t compare African fashion with British fashion, for a start they are a season behind us as our winter is their summer and vice versa. If you can call it a winter!! There are parts of South Africa like Cape Town and Jo’burg, which can get quite chilly the same as parts of Zimbabwe but not enough to start wearing big winter coats, gloves and boots like we do in the UK. They do though and I don’t blame them, it’s nice to have a change from wearing shorts and bikinis for a while. I actually prefer winter clothes there’s more of an art to it. You can really design your outfit and actually wear clothes. I’m not suggesting that South Africans go around naked but some of the girls you do have to double take to see if they are actually wearing a skirt!! I have to admit I’m not as shocked by how the girls dress here as I was when I first came to South Africa. The thing is that in Durban from about January to February it is so hot and humid that you can’t even face putting on clothes. For me that means I take to wearing light, loose dresses as I just cant bare tight clothing when you feel so sticky. South African girls seem to see it as an excuse to wear as short a skirt as possible and as low a cut tops as possible but all of this remains as tight as possible, which to me seems to defeat the prupose of trying to stay cool.

In Harare you have the disadvantage of having a deflated society, which has reduced the availability of fashionable clothing. Mixed in with this you have a lot of youngsters who have spent a few months or years in England and appear to have raided Topshop and New Look whilst they were there. I was very surprised to see a girl in pink tights walking through Borrowdale Village. Zimbabwe used to be known as the “bread basket of the World” so was largely a farming community, so to see a girl in pink tights in Harare is as strange as the same outfit walking into a local pub in Norfolk. I won’t say the Hoste Arms because more bizarre outfits have been known to grace the bar there. My Mother being one of them when she walked into the bar in a full length silver fox coat complete with hood; very extravagant for essentially a farming village pub but she looked fabulous. But then the Hoste is a bit more fashionable than your average village local. What I’m trying to say is that there is a time and a place for everything. Being fashionable or getting an outfit right has a lot to do with the location and environment you wear it in. Always dress for the occasion.