I’VE pretty much given up on dressing to code. Having arrived at my first exhibition opening doused in Dolce and Gabbana, wearing heels as high as the artist and a dress as dark as the art, it was more than a little mortifying to find myself standing next to a tracksuit-clad woman foully fragrant from twenty minutes on a treadmill with the extra aroma of spaghetti bolognaise.
Irrationally, I thought an invitation to attend the NFC Short Film Project premieres with the attire advice of ‘red carpet’, would see people dressed in sequins, suits and threads fit for the famed.However, it seems that, in Windhoek-speak, ‘red carpet’ is code for jeans and jerseys with scarves and sneakers, failing which, one must not hesitate to don anything and everything that will succeed in making one look like the most dismally dishevelled hobo there ever was.I suppose it was upon seeing all this questionable couture that it finally dawned on me; Windhoek is truly, madly and deeply in the grips of Dress Code Dyslexia (DDC).The indications are simple; when the invitation says pink, one wears green, when the letter says fun, one dresses for a funeral and if the code is formal, one hastens to the closest closet to search the whole of Narnia for the most insipid, ordinary and inappropriate attire in all the realm, before hurrying home to offend Canons and Kodaks alike.This, ladies and gentlemen, is the insufferable state of things. Though mercifully, and much like the scattered central characters in a zombie apocalypse, not everyone is afflicted.Take ‘Place of Peace’ (2012) actress, Thereza Kahorongo, for example. Having flown in on a well- dressed wind, the alluring actress decided to dress for her personal success in a floor length maroon dress that was both elegant and appealing.Not one to leave all the glamour to her budding leading lady, stunning starlet, Lynn Strydom, dazzled in a white Grecian gown which offset her aunt’s ravishing red velvet number. ‘All She Ever Wanted’ actresses Kirsty Watermeyer and Nicola Theron also get the red carpet memo and while Theron triumphed in a classic black number, Watermeyer looked effortlessly beautiful in blue.Steven Afrikaner, Cecil Moller and Tim Huebschle were bothered on behalf of the boys and all looked stylish in suits. Differing in definition, Afrikaner’s ensemble was all about personal style and his bow tie and black cuffs looked suitably quirky and cool while Huebschle and Moller opted for more classic cuts with the former looking dapper in black and white as the latter looked grand in grey and black.While there were certainly a few more able to interpret dress codes correctly, the common catastrophe of things is to ignore attire advice completely, which begs the question: if one can’t dress up for a film premiere; what exactly can one be bothered to dress up for?How boring of the people who came in flats or felt they were fashionably casual.Enough with this enduring game of the Emperor’s new clothes! The truth is when you dress casually, you look careless and the only people who should wear sneakers on the red carpet are Ceelo Green and Kanye West because their kicks cost more than the most people’s mortgages.As for the rest of us? Let’s have a little respect for the occasion, let’s indulge our host’s request and celebrate the achievements of the people who work so tirelessly at building our nation’s artistic identity and let’s do it looking glammed, glossed and glorious.– martha.mukaiwa@gmail.com
