THE Issue: Fashion forecast

marieclaire.co.za

SOUTH AFRICA

R29,90 (incl VAT) Namibia N$29,90 Other countries R26,23

MARCH 2014

‘I WAS MARRIED AT A T 19 TO AN 85 YEAR-OLD’

DOING A DEMI Lee-Ann Liebenberg’s PERSONAL REASON FOR BARING ALL

Wit, wisdom & common sense MEET THE WORLD’S HOTTEST ‘PLUS-SIZE’ MODEL

Fashion foreca st st

THE NAVY TAKEOVER, POSH PUNKS, BIG, BOLD JEWELS, WILD PRINTS

d e k k a E n I S S U ‘Me, my selfie & I’ HAS SOCIAL MEDIA MADE SHOWING OFF OKAY?

G N I G A P CA M C M

E H T

G N N I H T Y N E R R E D i m , V L L n I a E m H a P SA C h a d S a O R , C O R E D N o o l u O O S h I B M I L M y T i n L L s, B o i t t y E & g L n E C E D 4 S a n d e r c L o t t t e e r

6 3

n E a F y R T O w o o d &

a y H a s s n e a V g n u r i n F e a t u

M a

‘Personally, I don’t like watching violence. I’d much rather see more skin.’ Cameron Diaz

0 3 1 2 8

9

771028

017004

136

‘This month’s travel piece on Hawaii looks idyllic. I could certainly use a trip to paradise!’

ON THE

COVER Photograph

Merwelene van der Merwe Make-up Gina Myers for Elizabeth Arden Hair Saadique Ryklief Retouching Juliet White

Sivan Gurland, advertising sales executive

CONTENTS

march 20 14

COVER STORIES 45

60

NAKED CAMPAIGN

Thirty-six celebrities bare it all in support of the The Lunchbox Fund

128 140

CELEBRITY Lee-Ann

TRENDBOOK

Liebenberg Cover star,

model and mom on her connection to the cause 68

Sensational Skincare hampers worth R3 200

MUST-READ ‘I was

married at 19 to an 85-year-old’ A woman

STOCKISTS

FASHION Urban

flees a life of polygamy 72

TREND REPORT The

‘Look at Me’ economy

FEATURES 39

Seizing the day or showing off? 144

THIS MUCH I KNOW

67

Model, Robyn Lawley

REGULARS & COMPETITIONS 10 12

ED’S LETTER

66

WIN! One of 16

75

8

SUBSCRIBE AND

marie claire march 2014

would you do if you weren’t afraid? 141 LIFE STORY The queen of punk Vivienne Westwood

FASHION & BEAUTY 89

NATURAL FIT An

African collaboration 98

OFF THE RAILS

‘The annual Marie Claire Naked campaign is my most anticipated of each year. The images are a delicious feast, not to mention in aid of an amazing cause. Please help us make a difference by supporting this incredible campaign.’ Romy Heldsinger, business development manager

E R D N A D N A M O C . E E E R T G N X U A O M L I L S E H X I P P A / R R E G N O E T P O E H P W

All aboard the fashion train 106 112 119

MY WORLD

Anthea Poulos

A winning combination 124 BEAUTY DIARY Glitter

INTERNATIONAL

126

RUNWAY TO OUR WAY CATWALK REPORT MATTE & SHINE

BEAUTY SHELF

Thando Hopa 127

18

BODY POLITICS

The Bobble Sport; Core Fit Pilates; the Bikini Bridge

Can Do It Pageant 78

Elizabeth Arden hampers worth R2 855 118 WIN! One of 13 SIX

VOX POP What

The Mexican transgender population; Hollywood aspirants BULLETIN

I’m in a wheelchair, doesn’t mean I’m not beautiful’ The Miss You

LETTERS Share your

RECEIVE

86

REPORT ‘Just because

views and win a prize

88

A surgical procedure restores sexual sensation

HOROSCOPES

jungle, vampire-esque, tailoring, navy, jewels and more 30 BEAUTY Masterclass, lashes, 3D berry lips, news, budget buys 15

Genital Mutilation

e v o l e 45 w h t n o m s i h t

82

GENDER REPORT

DOWNTIME

Don’t tell me to shut up Women want to be seen and heard

129 135

SOCIAL REPORT

Undoing Female

FOOD Quality treats TRAVEL 48 Hours in China

PLUS Hawaii AGENDA New stuff to do, 138 listen to, watch and buy

‘I love the Suzaan Heyns jacket on Medieval Vampire (pg 18) as well as Beauty Masterclass (pg 30) – I enjoyed designing it and got useful tips on applying mascara.’ Donna Johnson, senior designer

Now, everyone’s a makeup artist.

Shop at clinique.co.za

ChubbySticks for eyes and lips. Colour so easy you can do it with your eyes closed.

mc ed’s

letter

ASPASIA’S

JOURNAL

I C C I R A N I N

10


It was 8 June, my 14th birthday, and I was filled with that foolish delight that this random occurrence will deliver to those who are still immortal. As I tripped into school bearing a birthday cake for my fellow immortals, I was stopped in my tracks by a Ms. M (I shall keep her name from you for the sake of propriety). She was a flaming red head who had issues with boundaries. For example, the life-skills class had recently taken a turn into the surreal and the supremely gross when she had lasciviously demonstrated the correct way to slide a condom onto the erect male member by using a banana. Not cool. Particularly uncool because she also happened to be having trouble with the studentteacher relationship boundary at the time. Word in the corridors, heaving with teenage pheromones and Axe deodorant spray, had it that she was conducting a flagrant affair with a grade 11 pupil. He was the kind of boy who happened to be adored by everyone. By everyone, I also mean me. Charming, smart, sporty, poetry-reading and beautiful. He lived in that glowing, blond, angelic space certain boys occupy just before they reach full malehood. As a lowly 14-year-old I did not feature in his 16-year-old universe, not even as a speck of solar dust. But I would watch him circle my firmament with much moony-mooching and an  It’s the new inexplicable feeling of deep despair. season and we Did I mention I had just turned 14? Ms. have a bumper fashion edition to M, despite her questionable forays into share with you – I am totally obsessed sex education, was, it transpired, also an with the new take authoritarian. In my ears on that fateful on ladylike glamour, morning were my new birthday earrings shot throughout with seductive, sexy from my parents. Carefully purchased to charm. Bring it on, coincide with the ‘rules and regulations’ I say (page 89). that stipulated girls can only wear one  This month, you earring per ear, and this solitary adornment cannot have failed to notice we are should be a sleeper or a stud. My birthday naked… 2014’s studs, as it happens, were square. Teeny, campaign is the result of a chance tiny, perfectly formed flat squares. Not ugly, meeting with Topaz round, protuberant lumps (I rejected those Page-Green, who inspired me with her out of hand), but subtle, clever, practically brilliant project The invisible squares. Sadly Ms. M was like Lunchbox Fund and a small, red-earring aberration-detection Feedie. Help us machine. She swooped in like a drone feed our nation’s children (page 45). and dropped her malicious bomb. ‘These

earrings are not regulation.’ She was not interested in the semantics of square versus blob, or the birthday cake I was carrying and high-handedly broke my spirit with a double detention. She did it with much evil cackling, just before she took off on her broomstick, to shag the kid next door. I was incensed. I was livid. I was shaken to my very core. Here was a person in a position of extreme authority who blatantly broke the 30-centimetre rule (you know the one stating boys and girls should maintain a distance of a ruler between them at all times). Surely two rulers should apply between teachers and pupils? Yet, this child molester was nevertheless in a position to dispense extreme punishment for a minor infringement that had arguably never been committed. There are certain wrongs perpetrated against one’s person, that the person can never really forgive. Ever. These wrongs tarnish your once-innocent outlook and charge your life with the fire and brimstone of retributive justice. These wrongs take the world and shift it instantly into a new, brighter, harder place where you see the injury with the piercing clarity of the mad and the young. The sheer injustice of it all burnt a stripe of angry resentment in my teenage heart at all obvious abuses of power. A week later I took to handing out 16 June pamphlets, which some friends of mine had brought onto school property and which got everyone into some real trouble. My double detention suddenly looked like child’s play by comparison. Clearly this is a story about how a fashion choice can become the catalyst for a youth spent in pursuit of social justice. But it is also a story about e-tolls, and Nkandla and the coming elections. Because unlike my beleaguered 14-year-old self, who had no means to alter the course of her swift and damning detention, we now live in a democracy. And when our leaders think nothing of applying the rules selectively for their own nefarious interests, we do have a way of putting a brake on their broomsticks.

(PS:Years later I met the mother of the boy in question, who told me this harpy had indeed been sleeping with her son and it had taken him many years to restore his equilibrium, stop smoking the spliff she had introduced him to and come back from her malignant impact. I have no words.)

E L D A E B G E R G D N A E W R E M R E D N A V E N E L E W R E M , N A M L O O M E E L N I T S I R K , M O C . E E R T X A M I S H P A R G O T O H P

mc letters

WE’RE LISTENING WHETHER YOU’RE TALKING TO US ON TWITTER, FACEBOOK, SNAIL MAIL OR E-MAIL � WE HEAR YOU

Conlan, Lee Hagen, Sinead Martin, Lauren Brits, Aimee Carelse, Sarah Laurence, Caitlin J ames, Nikki Sherman, Nothemba Mkhondo and Marisa Breedt

IN OUR INBOX

Business development manager (JHB)

WINNING LETTER As a teacher of teenage girls, and a young woman myself,I have been lamenting the constant barrage of stick-thin models and jutting bones in women’s magazines, and the constant pressure that females face to be pretty and skinny.Marie Claire is the last magazine I can still buy and not be completely disillusioned, thanks to insightful, stimulating articles and features such as ‘The Awkward Years Project’ and ‘I feel powerful when…’ (January 2014).These are the kind of articles I can show to the girls I teach to demonstrate strong, capable women with normal builds who are not defined by the way they look, but instead by what they do and who they are.These are the things that make them feel powerful within themselves, not expectations imposed on them by men and the beauty industry. Thank you for these two features that celebrate achievements and female strength, I will definitely be using them in my classroom. – Yanou Pienaar wins a Lamelle hamper THE SELFIE I have just purchased and begun reading the January 2014 issue. I am truly shocked that the article entitled ‘The Biggest Stories of 2014’ has Madiba’s health as its second most newsworthy story of 2013. How can the ‘selfie’ be more noteworthy than Madiba’s health? We saw this

country, and indeed the world, come to a standstill upon his death. When it really comes down to it, this made far more news, and impact, than a Miley Cyrus selfie. I’m truly disappointed that anything besides Madiba’s health and death could be considered more newsworthy. What a pity, and perhaps a reflection of society’s self-centred exhibitionism. – Megan Fraser

WIN! AN ELIZABETH

EDITOR’S RESPONSE You are absolutely right of course – sadly Madiba’s death occurred after we had gone to print – we made a concerted effort to attempt to insert a loose leaf into the magazine after the deadline but it was impossible. (I shed a tear of frustration, I can tell you.) As you know, we try to approach the issues of the day with a wry and intelligent eye on the world. We did not order the stories of the year (although I can see how the numbers may give that impression), so much as present them as 10 things that really changed the way we operated, perceived ourselves and experienced the world. It is probably a very sad indictment that even President Obama, President Cameron and the Danish Prime Minister took a selfie at the memorial service for Madiba. Please find the link to the editorial note I wrote on the day of the tragic death of Madiba (Marieclaire.co.za/hot-topics/ eds-note/a-note-from-our-editor) and please continue to challenge us. It shows that you respect us enough to raise important issues with us. I wish you a very happy and successful 2014 and hope that you will continue to read MC and keep us on our toes. – Aspasia Karras

ARDEN

HAMPER VALUED AT OVER

R� 000! This month one lucky letter winner will receive an Elizabeth Arden hamper filled with products from the Visible Difference skin-care range, including Skin Balancing Daily Exfoliating Cleanser, Skin Balancing and Refining Toner, Optimizing Skin Serum and Skin Balancing Perpetual Hydration Lotion SPF 15; in addition to make-up from the Beautiful Color collection, including Moisturizing Lipstick and Precision Glide Lip Liner that last for 12 hours, the luxurious and modern Untold EDP spray and the lightweight and breathable NEW Flawless Finish Perfectly Nude Makeup SPF 15

and Flawless Finish Correcting and Highlighting Perfector. Elizabetharden.co.za

PINTEREST.COM/MARIECLAIRESA

@MARIECLAIRE_SA

FACEBOOK.COM/MARIECLAIRESA

MAIL MARIE CLAIRE , PO BOX 3647, CAPE TOWN 8000 OR E-MAIL [email protected] OR FOLLOW US ON TWITTER AT TWITTER.COM/MARIECLAIRE_SA OR VISIT OUR FACEBOOK PAGE, MARIECLAIRESA

12


Editor Aspasia Karras Art director Anna Lineveldt Senior designer Donna Johnson Picture editor Jana Heyns Deputy editor Kelda Lund Managing editor Emilie Gambade Features editor Zanele Kumalo Features writer Sarah Koopman Contributing senior features writer Anna Hartford Chief copy editor Jessica Oliver Copy editor Kate Mason Contributing editor Mariette Theron Online content producer Marisa Crous Fashion director Sharon Becker Junior fashion editor Bee Diamondhead Fashion assistant Andrea Albertyn Beauty editor Mathahle Stofile Junior fashion and beauty editor Kelly Fung Interns Sahil Harilal, Katja Rodmila, Lauren Voges, Kathryn

Romy Heldsinger

Advertising sales executive (CT) Sivan Gurland Advertising sales executives (JHB) Kylee Robertson,

Lerato Matoko

Advertising controller Shantel Peskin Production controller Theo Ernest Promotions designer Jetske Amijs

ASSOCIATED MEDIA PUBLISHING Chairman Jane Raphaely Managing director Julia Raphaely Content director Vanessa Raphaely Commercial finance manager Robert Hill Group publisher Rebecca Whisson-Smeda Group publisher: audience development

Andreline van Tonder

Digital content strategist Zani Botes Human resources manager Marcelle Maggott Payroll officer Chanelle Coghill Human resources administrator Poppy Ngidi Public relations manager Jaco-Louis Groenewald Digital and PR coordinator Jeanne Cupido Production manager Lorraine Lines Supply chain manager Melt van der Walt IT manager James Wight Syndication manager Teresa van der Bank Syndication coordinator Sharon Rajee Acting group marketing manager Choi Mi Chung Trade marketing manager Lisa Shaw Marketing designer Michelle Joubert Customer relations consultant Thando Mxutu Group events manager Michelle Merryweather Group commercial events manager Karen Romero Events manager Jolize Aschmann Group promotions manager Jane Hey Online traffic controller Sharlee Wurdeman Competitions coordinator Sinazo Makaleni Financial accountant Kathy Graham Junior accountant Keagan Kemp Credit controllers Zaibu Isaacs and Merle Pitts Debtors’ controller Meagan Dowman Managing director’s PA Janine Duncan Cape Town office manager Azraa Garnie Johannesburg reception/office manager Irene Bosch Cape Town reception Claudine Smith Clerical assistant Carol Bergendal Driver Trevor Goodall Housekeeping Rosaline Jones, Felicia Burt,

Samson Mtonga

MARIE CLAIRE INTERNATIONAL

Executive director Laurence Hembert Deputy director (finance and development) Félix Droissart International editorial director Florence du Luart International chief editor Séverine Harzo International creative director Sylvie Halic International commercial director Véronique Depery International deputy commercial director Elisabeth Barbier Syndication director Thierry Lamarre Branded products director Fabrice Taupin

CAPE TOWN HEAD OFFICE

Associated Media Publishing,21 St John’s Street, Cape Town 8001; PO Box 3647,Cape Town 8000; tel 021-464-6200; fax 021-462-5846; e-mail [email protected]

JOHANNESBURG OFFICE

First Floor South Wing,3 Sandown Valley Crescent, Sandton 2196; tel 011-783-5500; fax 011-783-5489

SUBSCRIPTIONS

To subscribe:call 0861-000-423 (local) or +27 11-4015956 (international) or fax us at 086-533-9300,e-mail [email protected],SMS ‘OTDMAGSUBS’followed by ‘MC Subs’to 43366 (standard SMS rates apply), or send a letter to On The Dot Subscriptions,2 Herb Street, New Doornfontein,Johannesburg 2028. Reproduction by Hirt & Carter. Marie Claire magazine is published monthly by Associated Media Publishing (Pty) Ltd,21 St John’s Street, Cape Town 8001.If you cannot find a copy in store, please e-mail [email protected]. Trademark ‘marie claire’owned and registered in South Africa by Marie Claire Album,a French Société that has its registered office in Paris,France.Published under agreement by Associated Media Publishing (Pty) Ltd,21 St John’s Street,Cape Town 8001.All rights reserved.Reproduction of any material,including digital,in whole or part without written permission is strictly prohibited.No responsibility will be taken for unsolicited material.Use of trademark is strictly prohibited. Editorial contributions are welcome and should be sent to the features editor, Marie Claire ,PO Box 3647, Cape Town 8000.All due care will be taken with material submitted,but the magazine and publishers cannot be held responsible for loss or damage.Every effort will be made to return contributions if a stamped,addressed envelope is included. Manuscripts are accepted on the understanding that Marie Claire reserves the right to edit,amend and abridge any manuscript accepted forpublication. Marie Claire takes no responsibility for any errors in terms of any information published in the magazine.

911383ME

TRIPLE CARE CREAM TRIPLE CARE COLOUR RADIANTLY RICH NATURAL LOOKING MAGNIFICENT

BECAUSE YOU DESERVE E XCELLENCE

ENRICHED WITH CERAMIDES, COLLAGEN AND PRO- KERATIN.  HAIR IS TRIPLE PROTECTED: BEFORE, DURING AND AFTER.  UP TO 100% GREY COVERAGE. 

“I TAKE RISKS... BUT NOT WITH MY HAIR!” Eva Longoria

Find us at www.facebook.com/LOrealParisSouthAfrica

STAND A CHANCE TO WIN WITH EXCELLENCE CRÈME PURCHASE A NY L’ORÉAL E XCELLENCE CRÈME A ND YOU COULD WIN A PANDORA BRACELE T. SEE IN-STORE OR VISI T FACEBOOK FOR DETAILS. TE RM S AN D C ON DI TI ON S A PP LY.

D E I L P P U S H P A R G O T O H P

B inspired by Oscar B. Brand new to South Africa, Oscar B. from the Netherlands has been a market leader in its segment, well known for producing fashionable women’s clothing of a high quality at competitive prices. Available nationwide. Visit Slimsuit.co.za or call 021-702-3970 for your nearest stockist.

trends

S I D A I T O F S I X E L A T I A R T R O P S ’ N O R A H S M O C . E E R T X A M I H P A R G O T O H P

�NEW SEASON � � �MAKE LIKE MCCARTNEY � elcome to winter, where we can expect � exciting new looks and wardrobe updates. ’ top of our list is the Stella �McCartney At the Autumn/Winter 2014 collection, �which shows a typically interplay of masculine �and feminine linescool coats, tailoring, �boy-meets-girl details, navy. Oversized and luxe fabrics are her focus – a perfect starting point for this season’s � �major trends.

new trend

w

mc trends

2 D E R A U Q S D

� BYZANTINE � � � � �ELABORATELY GILDED AND A EMBROIDERED GLAMOUR N � A � B his Autumn/Winter feminine statement comes B A � in the form of the Eastern Empire’s most striking G & � characteristics – all taken from the decadent E � Renaissance and Medieval eras. Look out for treasures C L O � in heavy gold, mosaic patterns, opulent crosses, D �crowns and chandelier earrings. A

jewels

2 D E R A U Q S D

t

N A B B A G & E C L O D

� � � � � � � � 1. Don’t be afraid to go head to toe in accessories, it’s all about lavish layering.

2. Choose to wear bold patterns or shiny fabrics with your jewels to really make a statement.

3. Wear fresh, clean and minimalist make-up to complete the look.

16

A T N E R A L E D R A C S O


2 D E R A U Q S D

M O C . E E R T X A M I S H P A R G O T O H P N Y T R E B L A A E R D N A S D R O W

TRENERY.COM.AU Available at selected Woolworths stores and exclusively at Brooklyn Mall, Cavendish Square, Hyde Park, Sandton City and V&A Waterfront.

mc trends

N A R A K A N N O D

N I A M L A B

LEATHER JACKET WITH NECKTIE, R7 895, SUZAAN HEYNS.

/ R E N E P E W E S R T D S N I A K C S O H T P S N A E Y E T R R G S E O T S B L O L I A H A A P T E E D R N I D T R N R O A A F M N M O D I O A T C E . C N U I E E S D R T O T X R N A P A T M I S G I D N S N U F S A A Y E N L G L O E I N K T U C O S U L D D L R O E O X R I W P P

ALEXANDER MCQUEEN SHIRT DRESS, R39 900, LUMINANCE.

PINSTUDDED CALFSKIN WEDGE BOOTS, R13 500, BURBERRY.

APPARTEMENT À LOUER WARRIOR NECKLACE, R7 200, CATHERYNE GAEYLA.

FAUX FUR-LINED LEATHER GLOVES, R1 160, TED BAKER.

18CTGOLD VERMEIL AND STONE EARRINGS, R2 050, KIRSTEN GOSS.

DRESS WITH MESH NECK,

R2 395,

SUZAAN HEYNS.

VALENTINO KNEELENGTH BOOTS, R9 700, LUMINANCE.

inter’s shady, vampire-esque mood calls for leather, vertical silhouettes and exaggerated shoulder shapes in a deep, solid black.

CÉLINE CAT-EYE SUNGLASSES, R3 440, SAFILO.

SOBRAL BANGLE, R760, THAT’S IT!

LEATHER CROPPED TROUSERS, R1 200, GUESS.

ANKLE BOOTS,

R1 499,

NINE WEST.

LEATHER CLUTCH, R1 080, ADRIAAN KUITERS + JODY PAULSEN.

METAL CUFF, R60, MR PRICE.

FASCINATE LEATHER CLUTCH, R25 200, LOUIS VUITTON.

CHANEL SUNGLASSES WITH PEARL DETAIL, R5 850, EXTREME EYEWEAR.

   AW13 Collection in-store now

4 1 H C R A M _ O M S O C / E N U D

Available at Sandton City Shop No: U32, Canal Walk Shop No:201 and selected Edgars stores.

trends

VICTORINOX SWISS ARMY WATCH WITH VICTORIA ANTHRACITE DIAL AND SATIN STRAP, R4 199, PICOT & MOSS.

CAT-EYE SUNGLASSES, R6 250, LOUIS VUITTON.

ANKLESTRAP HEELS, R999, ZARA.

BODYSUIT WITH LEATHER DETAIL, R1 890, SUZAAN HEYNS.

VICTORIA BECKHAM DROP-WAIST GILET DRESS, R14 500, STUDIO 8.

RADLEY TOTE BAG, R3 600, STUTT AFORDS.

T N A R A M L E B A S I

S È M R E H

INDIES RIBBED LEGGING R3 800, CATHERYN GAEYLA.

he sophisticated hue of blue has got our attention this season. Wear it from head to toe – from knitwear and tailoring to accessories and the staple winter coat.

GUESS RIGOR WATCH,

R2 198,

S. BACHER & COMPANY.

TEXTURED SKIRT, R2 999, TIGER OF SWEDEN.

BOMBER JACKET, R6 999, TIGER OF SWEDEN.

PATENT LOAFERS, R299, QUEENSPARK.

VELOUR DROPCROTCH TROUSERS, R2 799, DIESEL.

BELT,

R1 499,

TIGER OF SWEDEN.

LEATHER ANDTWEED JACKET, R1 800, GUESS.

N L O I E T X I C P U / R D E S O N T R E S P P I E K N C W Y T E O R R T E D S B L N E A A E A S S E H S R P L I D A A N R T A G E D N O T R O I O T H O F C P U M D N O I O T C . R R E P A E M R G T D X N A A U F E M I N I Y L D L S E T N A K N E S A T G D I S N R S U O S O W A L

4 1 H C R A M _ E R I A L C E I R A M / Y K C U L

Exclusive Store NOW OPEN in Eastgate, Shop No: U46 and also available at selected Edgars Stores

L E N A H C

TARTAN TIGHTS, R220, PAMELA MANN.

MESH CROP TOP, R850, BLACK COFFEE. CROPPED LEATHERTAPE JACKET, R2 800, BLACK COFFEE.

T T O C S N E R W ’ L

SCUBA COAT, R4 950, DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC. VOGUE SUNGLASSES, R850, SUNGLASS HUT.

STRIPED TROUSERS, R300, SECOND TIME AROUND. AROUND.

f there is one print you flash this season, make sure it’s tartan. Sophistication is given a rebellious streak with a punk feel. Key to this trend? Leather, studs, lace-up boots and a badass attitude.

E G N U O L L N O I L E T X I C P U / R D E O N R E P P E N W Y T E R R S T E D S B I L N K A A C A S O E H T R P D S E N A E A R G S O N T S O L I O I T H A C P T U E D N D I O T R R R O P A F M G M D N O A U C E F N . E I Y E L L S R E T T K N X A S A T M D S I I R S D O S N W A A

ALICE MCCALL DRESS WITH PVC DETAIL, DE TAIL, R2 360, IRACEMA BOUTIQUE.

TARTAN CAMISOLE, R279, ZARA.

BRASS CUFF,

R1 950, KIRSTEN GOSS.

CREEPER BOOTS, R899, THE LOT.

CLUTCH BAG, R699, NINE WEST.

LEATHER AND-TWEED JACKET, R2 200, GUESS.

HACHE PLEATED SKIRT, R6 800, THAT’S IT!

LEOPARDPRINT PULLOVER, R3 999 , TIGER OF SWEDEN.

MIU MIU ANIMALPRINT SUNGLASSES, R2 550, SUNGLASS HUT.

trends mc Y N K D

SNAKESKINPRINT HEELS, R3 265 , OSCARINA BOUTIQUE. LEOPARDPRINT SHORTS, R2 999 , TIGER OF SWEDEN.

OKAPI LAMIA BLESBOK BUTTERCUP BAG, R15 000, MERCHANTS ON LONG.

� � � � URBAN � � � � THE WILD SIDE OF THINGS � ake on the concrete jungle with this season’s season’s � fresh take on animal prints, which have been � modernized through simple silhouettes and �paired with slick tailoring.

KENZO LEOPARDPRINT PANTS, R10 200 , CATHERYNE GAEYLA.

ju j ungle t

T-CLASP PURSE, R1 330, TED BAKER.

MAX&CO. ZEBRA-PRINT SUNGLASSES, R1 160, SAFILO.

N L O I E T X I C P U / R D E S O N T R E P I P S E K N C W Y T E O T R R S E D B L N E A A E A S S E S H L R P I D A A N R T E A G D O N T R O I O T O H F C P U M D N O I O T C . R R E P A E M R G T D X N A A U E F M I N I Y L D L S N E T A K N E S A T G D S I N R S U O S O W A L

HERMÈS DOUBLESTRAP WATCH,

Y N K D

SCOTCH & SODA MAISON SUEDE TIEDYE JACKET, R7 999 , INFINITE SIXTY.

GUESS BANGLE, R1 195, S. BACHER & COMPANY.

R28 995 ,

PICOT & MOSS.

SNAKESKINPRINT PRIN T TOP, R350, A-LIST. A-LIST.

FUG CLUTCH BAG, R199, YDE.

MARY KATRANTZOU LEATHER PEPLUM PEPL UM TOP, R39 000 , STUDIO 8. SNAKESKINPRINT PRIN T TOP, R350, A-LIST.

ANIMALPRINT BELT, R180, QUEENSPARK.

GLADESIDE HEELS, R8 750 , BURBERRY.

marieclaire.co.za

23

mc trends

PUFFEDSLEEVE DRESS, R3 499, GAVIN RAJAH.

R O I D N A I T S I R H C

I N A M R A O I R O P M E

CASHMERE GOLF SHIRT, R220, AFRAID OF MICE. FRÉDÉRIQUE CONSTANT ART DECO WATCH WITH OVAL ARABIC DIAL, R13 659 , PICOT & MOSS. ANTIQUE PENDANT NECKLACE, R200, GLITTERATI. SUMAYA EMBELLISHED HEELS, R1 099 , STRUT 24.

PEARL � EARRINGS, R100, � GLITTERATI. � � HOLLYWOOD � � � � THE ‘50s SILHOUETTE REVIVAL � his season’s trend provides the perfect opportunity for ladies � to be ladylike again. The ‘50s silhouette and glamorous touches � from Hollywood’s golden era mean cinched-in waists, dainty �cardigans and full-circle skirts – a celebration of the female form.

glamour t

SATIN WIDE-LEG TROUSERS, R1 999, GAVIN RAJAH.

SCUBA COAT,

R8 600 ,

EMPORIO ARMANI.

FAUX-FUR AND LEATHER GLOVES, R1 160 , TED BAKER.

ANKLESTRAP HEELS, R999, ZARA.

24


FLAIRED PLEATED SKIRT, R650, KOTTIN & TWILLE.

BLOCK CLUTCH, R16 600, SALVATORE FERRAGAMO.

S T N I S I T K R C A O M T D S A E E E N S I S S L T I N A T A T E S I D S R S O A F N M O I O T C C . E U E D R O T X R A P M I N Y T D N R A E B L E G A N A U E O R L D L N E A X I P N / O I R E T N C E U P D E O W R E P R D G N N A U F S Y H L L P E A K R S G O D R T O O H W P

mc trends

OVERSIZED COAT, R7 999, TIGER OF SWEDEN.

DIANE VON FÜRSTENBERG TWEED COAT, R10 400 , LUMINANCE.

GUCCI STEELBRACELET WATCH, R8 895 , PICOT & MOSS.

S T N I S I T K R C A O M T D S A E E E N S I S S L T I N A T A T E S D I S R S O A F N M O I O T C C . E U E D R O T R X A P M I N Y T D N R A E B L E G A N A U E O R L D L N E A X I P N / O I R E T N C E U P D E O W R E P R D G N N A U F S Y H L L P E A K R S G O D R T O O H W P

SCHUTZ DUNE HEELS,

R1 990 ,

OSCARINA BOUTIQUE.


R O I D N A I T S I R H C

� JIMMY CHOO � SUNGLASSES, R3 440 , � SAFILO. SHARP � � � � �FORM-FLATTERING SHAPES � ever out of style, tailoring has gone glam with suits, � jackets and trousers worked into clean, figure-flattering � shapes. A slight shine is seen in fabrics and the fashion world is once again focused on a monotone colour palette. �

tailoring

n

METALBAR TOTE BAG, R3 900 , TED BAKER.

PENCIL SKIRT, R425, TRUWORTHS. HOOP EARRINGS, R285, JANGI.

CROPPED TROUSERS, R4 100 , HUGO BOSS.

FANG CROPPED TROUSERS, R1 399 , PRINGLE.

JACKET,

R8 600,

EMPORIO ARMANI. FANG JACKET,

R2 499 ,

26

PRINGLE. marie claire march 2014

JIL SANDER TWO-TONE BOOTS, R13 400 , LUMINANCE.

mc trends

LI-DA NECKLACE, R3 900 , THAT’S IT!

OVERSIZED EMBELLISHED TOP, R6 000, STEFANIA MORLAND.

E O J & L U A P

METALLIC SHIFT DRESS, R500, SECOND TIME AROUND.

IDA ELSJE BRASS RING WITH MOONSTONE, R2 850 , OLIVE GREEN CAT.

LEAF RING,

R160,

LOVISA.

VINTAGE BIJOUX EGG NECKLACE, R2 600 , LUMINANCE.

PENROSE BOW PURSE, R6 450, BURBERRY.

� � � � BRILLIANT � � � � LUXURY GOES A LONG WAY � opious amounts of gold, jewel tones and ornate � accessories make this winter a little more luxe. � Look to intricate patterns and over-the-top fabrics �like silks, velvet and bejewelled everything.

byzance

A K H C S I M Y E L G D A B

S T N I S I T K R C A O M T D S A E E E N S I S S L T I N A T A T E S D I S R S O A F N M O I O T C C . E U E D R O T R X A P M I N Y T D N R A E B L E G A N A U E O R L D L N E A X I P N / O I R E T N C E U P D E O W R E P R D G N N A U F S Y H L L P E A K R S G O D R T O O H W P

c

SUNSET SANDALS, R12 900 , LOUIS VUITTON. TOM FORD CAT-EYE SUNGLASSES, R4 500 , EXTREME EYEWEAR.

FLORAL SKATER DRESS, R2 950, DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC.

PRINGLE EMBROIDERED JACKET, R2 000 , STUTTAFORDS.

GUESS VIVA GOLDBRACELET WATCH, R2 595 , S. BACHER & COMPANY.

28


METALLIC MARYJANE HEELS, R999, ZARA.

ELEPHANTCHAIN BELT, R150, GLITTERATI.

DRIES VAN NOTEN BEADED DRESS, R36 500 , LUMINANCE.

The product most recommended by doctors for scars & stretch marks. Ipsos, 2012

“I had I like a scar I read

a bad fall and ended up with a large cut along my shin bone. to wear skirts and dresses so I was worried about having in such a noticeable place. Just as the wound was healing, an article in a magazine in which a celebrity swore by

Bio-Oil. I was skeptical, but I thought it was worth a try. I faithfully followed the directions for using Bio-Oil, and my scar is now less noticeable. I feel confident wearing skirts and dresses again, and I have Bio-Oil to thank!” Busisiwe Magadla

Bio-Oil® is a specialist skincare product formulated to help improve the appearance of scars, stretch marks and uneven skin ton e. Its unique formulation, which contains t he breakthrough ingredient PurCellin Oil™, is also highly effective for ageing and dehydrated skin. For comprehensive product information and results of clinical trials, please visit bio-oil.com. Bio-Oil is available at pharmacies and selected retailers at the recommended selling price of R49.99 (60ml). Individual results will vary. BioOilSA

E C A S R E V

mc news

A R A C S � A � M �

c i g a m

� R S, E L R � , C U A N A L L S M U � S H S E R S � I T C O U � LA N S I O N C H I F Y U ’ R E � E X T E B I T M U HA T Y O E W T HA H L � E T A W O G � O N ’ T K N F O R. MA RA S H D K I N G A C S � R E O L O I L E O F F O W T O S T O F R S E O N H O U T O F C O U H E B E S T H E S G E T T E Y E LA S Y O U R

MAYBELLINE ILLEGAL LENGTH FIBER EXTENSIONS WATERPROOF MASCARA IN VERY BLACK, R100.

MAYBELLINE THE ONE-BYONE VOLUM’ EXPRESS MASCARA IN SATIN BLACK, R125.

CLINIQUE HIGH IMPACT MASCARA IN BLACK, R215.

�� STEP 1 CLEANSE: Most cleansers fail to remove mascara so we are often required to use eye make-up remover. But do we remember to remove the make-up remover? It is important to use an oil-free cleanser or sweep a face wipe across the eye area to remove excess oil left by the remover. Always start your look by ensuring your lashes are clean.

STEP 2 CURL: It is worth investing in an eyelash curler to curve your lashes up, which helps to minimize the appearance of dark shadows that lashes cast over your eyes. A quality curler also prepares lashes for a neatly applied coat of mascara without the fly-aways. Start curling at the bottom of the lash line. Press firmly three times before moving up to the middle of the lash. Repeat until you get to the tips. I C C U P O I L I M E

STEP 3 COAT: Before applying mascara, clean the end tip with a paper towel. Start at the base line of the eyelid and wiggle the brush a little to build a heavy base that will hold the lashes up. Slowly brush the mascara upwards.

STEP 4 LAYER: If you are the type to layer on coat after coat of mascara, then go for a brush made with silicone bristles, as these tend to clump less. Make sure you layer while the mascara is still wet to further avoid clumping.

TIP: If you wish to achieve fuller and longer lashes (who doesn’t?), try using a lash serum religiously and you should see some visible results within weeks, if not days. YSL MASCARA VOLUME EFFET FAUX CILS BABY DOLL IN FETISH BLACK, R345.

30

E C A S R E V marie claire march 2014

MAYBELLINE THE COLOSSAL VOLUM’ EXPRESS SMOKY EYES MASCARA IN INTENSE BLACK, R125.

STEP 5 DOUBLE UP: Don’t shy away from using more than one mascara. If you feel you need a volumizing mascara followed by a coat of a separating one, go ahead. Just ensure that you achieve your desired look before the mascara sets.

DIOR DIORSHOW BLACK OUT MASCARA IN 99 KOHL BLACK, R415.

M O C . E E R T X A M I D N A D E I L P P U S S H P A R G O T O H P E L I F O T S E L H A H T A M S D R O W

trends mc

TOM FORD SAHARA NOIR EDP, 50ML, R1 395.

Tom Ford Sahara Noir Never mind the classic beauty of the bottle, this scent is a great confidence booster. The top notes may be a little overpowering at first, but they quickly settle into a smokiness that will remind you of burning incense. It is a very sexy perfume.

Bvlgari Aqva Amara

BVLGARI AQVA AMARA EDT, 100ML, R1 225 .

There isn’t a single Bvlgari fragrance that doesn’t resonate with us. This particular scent is great on both men and women. We love the copper round bottle as well as the freshness of the scent. Aqva Amara means ‘bitter water’.

AZZARO DUO EDT, 80ML, R525.

G R U B S N E R N A V D D U J S H P A R G O T O H P E L I F O T S E L H A H T A M S D R O W

BLING

bling

Azzaro Duo

A cleverly designed perfume bottle that will mould perfectly into your hand and fit nicely in your handbag.

GOLD IS A DEFINITE WINNER FOR THIS SEASON

n

ot every girl is charmed by the ‘bling’ thing when � � it comes to fashion. If this is the case, limiting the � bling effect to beauty products is the way to go. � We love displaying them on a silver tray on our vanity tables � at home! More is more when it comes to the packaging of �beauty products – and it would seem that gold is a winner � this winter.

ESTÉE LAUDER PURE COLOR BLUSH IN 04 EXOTIC PINK, R425. GUCCI GUILTY POUR FEMME STUDS LIMITED EDITION EDT, 50ML, R815.

Estée Lauder Pure

Clarins Everlasting

Color Blush

This is such fun to whip out in public because it really is a truly gorgeous product. Instead of applying blush directly to the apples of your cheeks, try applying it slightly above that for an immediate face-lift effect.

CLARINS EVERLASTING COMPACT FOUNDATION SPF 15 IN 103 IVORY, R385.

Gucci Guilty How rock ‘n’ roll? This is Frida Giannini’s (Gucci’s Creative Director) ode to the music genre as she is a self-professed lover of the rock aesthetic. Definitely a collector’s item.

Compact Foundation The best thing about foundation that comes in a compact is that it’s easier to travel with. This Clarins Compact Foundation comes with a great application sponge. marieclaire.co.za

31

Our new gold standard in awakening youthful radiance. Potent anti-ageing ing ingredients blended ded with the luxury of real gold to re-energise ise the lost radiance of ageing ageing skin cells.

TM

Winner of the best range within the anti-ageing category. Survey of 5000 people by Nielsen.

RADIANCE REVEALED VEALED FACIAL FOAM WITH REAL GOLD MICROPARTICLES PARTICLES

With age, skin gets drier and can become dull-looking. Infused with real gold microparticles, this ri ch creamy formula with luxurious lather has been especially designed for older skin to gently exfoliate and reveal youthful radiance without making skin feel dr y.

WEAR NOTHING BUT GOLD A couture collection inspired by POND’S Gold Radiance™ to showcase African women at their most radiant. A showcase showcase of sequins scattered on a sheer skirt - like glistening bubbles from a lathered foam. The vintage lace and fluidity of the fabric aare truly captivating, conjuring up elements o of nature: the vitality of trees, the flow of wat water. Bring life to your skin with swirls of radiance as flakes of real gold microparticles catch the light, and Radiance Revealed Facial Foa Foam envelops your skin.

 

Sheerness uncovered.

Luminosity revealed. Discover the Secret of Gold... 1. Download the free Junaio application from your Apple or Android store 2. Start Junaio, select [scan] and then scan the Facial Foam image on the left 3. Wait for 5 – 30 seconds and the hidden content will appear T

Available on most smart phones.

E D P

A D A R P

I N R A M A N A B B A G & E C L O D

CREATE A FULL AND LUSCIOUS WINE-STAINED POUT IN BERRY, GRAPE AND DEEP REDS

w

hen creating the ‘wine lip’, follow our guide below to make sure you do it just right. Delicious…

ALMAY COLOUR + CARE LIQUID LIP BALM IN JUST PLUM, R89.

G N A W A R E V

ELIZABETH ARDEN BEAUTIFUL COLOR LUMINOUS LIP GLOSS IN PASSION FRUIT, R185.

TOM FORD JASMIN ROUGE EDP, 50ML, R1 900.

� � � � � � � �

1. Start

by lightly applying

foundation or concealer to the lip. This helps to blur the natural line of your lip and

AVON SATIN SATISFACTION LIP COLOUR IN PLUSH PLUM, R90.

encourages you to create your own shape – you’ll achieve a deeper Cupid’s bow or even a fuller or thinner lip! 2. Precision

is important

for this look so use a lip brush to create a smooth outline. 3. Don’t be afraid to mix

different shades of red,

REVLON COLORBURST MATTE BALM IN 240 STRIKING SPECTACULAIRE, R120.

S H P A R G O T O H P

E L I F O T S E L H A H T A M

S D R O W

REVLON PARFUMERIE SCENTED NAIL ENAMEL IN BORDEAUX, R100.

CHANEL ROUGE ALLURE VELVET LUMINOUS MATTE LIP COLOUR IN 45 L’ADORÉE, R450.

M O C . E E R T X A M I D N A G R U B S N E R N A V D D U J

purple and pink for a 3D effect. Layer them, starting with the

MICHAEL KORS GLAM LIP LACQUER IN DAME, R275.

darkest, and use the lightest, brightest shade in the centre. Blend together seamlessly to complete the look.

L’ORÉAL PARIS INFALLIBLE 2-STEP LONGWEAR LIP COLOUR IN 121 FLAWLESS FUCHSIA, R109.

news mc Aussie

Lacoste

AUSSIE LIMITEDEDITION STREET ART RANGE,

Australian hair-care brand Aussie has increased the volume on its cool factor with a new limitededition Street Art range. Aussie products are great for daily cleansing for those with hair that’s in slick condition as well as those with locks that need a little more TLC.

When you think of Lacoste your mind is immediately drawn to a crisp, white golf shirt typical of the brand. This time, they’ve switched from fresh and sporty and have gone sexier with their new fragrance Eau De Lacoste Sensuelle. The aromatic journey begins with top notes of pink pepper and tart blackcurrant, and gives way to a hint of Turkish rose, sweet pea and Gladiolus inflexus, finally settling to a warm amber and nougatine – perfect for the colder months to follow.

FROM R65.

GARNIER BB CREAM MIRACLE SKIN PERFECTOR, R85.

EAU DE LACOSTE SENSUELLE EDP, 30ML, R505, 50ML, R720, 90ML, R970.

Garnier

Palmer’s We can’t get enough of this petit pot of lip-conditioning goodness from Palmer’s, which melts into your lips and effectively protects your pout. The new Mixed Berry Lip Butter is a real treat with an SPF 15 and a lovely, sheer berry tint.

M O C . E E R T X A M I D N A D E I L P P U S S H P A R G O T O H P G N U F Y L L E K S D R O W

� ON THE � � � � � � � �WHAT’S HAPPENING THIS MONTH �

beauty desk

Garnier’s new five-inone BB Cream Miracle Skin Perfector is on our radar this month for its new take on the already handy BB cream. Taking it one step further, Garnier has introduced a formula specifically for combination to oily skin. So, besides imperfection cover-up, increase in hydration and radiance, this cream helps to mattify your complexion too. CLARINS 3-DOT LINER, R230.

MAYBELLINE EYE STUDIO MASTER DUO 2-IN-1 GLOSSY LIQUID LINER, R111.

I U S A N N A

O Z N E K

PALMER’S COCOA BUTTER FORMULA LIP BUTTER SPF 15 MIXED BERRY, R23.

Smashbox Go big on liner this season, as per the winter beauty w w w trends. Get your tough we girl on by perfecting your skills at lining the upper eyelids and extending with an upwards flick. We love these new eyeliner offerings from Smashbox.

love N I V N A L

SMASHBOX ALWAYS SHARP 3D LINER, R210. marieclaire.co.za

35

ENVIRON

A few drops of this new serum – on the forehead, around the mouth and even on the delicate eye area – will help to soften and smooth frown lines quickly and visibly as the muscles relax. ENVIRON IONZYME FOCUS FROWN SERUM, R1 230.

DAVINES

GOSH

3

Covering dark circles, redness and puffy eyes is always on our list of priorities. That’s why we love GOSH’s convenient Click ‘n Conceal pens – the perfect go-to products for girls on the move. These concealers are available in Light, Medium, Dark plus, our personal favourite, a greentint anti-redness option that balances out those dreaded red blemishes.

Handy for travellers or styling emergencies, this Hair Refresher gets a thumbs up from us for its convenient and quick-fixing abilities. It’s a dry shampoo with a special formula that refreshes and cleans sans water. We love that it creates full-bodied volume, absorbs the greasy bits and leaves your hair with that justwashed scent. DAVINES HAIR REFRESHER DRY CLEANSING MIST, R260.

KORRES

A product that should find itself in every handbag, this miracle in a tube is an overnight remedy for extremely dry and cracked skin. It’s effective enough to smooth the roughest skin, but gentle enough to use on babies.

For a skin reboost during these colder, drier months, Korres Body Milk is the budget-friendly solution. We love the rich formula that contains almond oil and aloe, which gives the skin long-lasting hydration and a comfortable suppleness. And with flavours like Basil Lemon, Vanilla Cinnamon and Mint Tea, what’s not to love?

EUCERIN AQUAPHOR SOOTHING SKIN BALM, R75.

KORRES BASIL LEMON BODY MILK, R125.

GOSH CLICK ‘N CONCEAL, R115.

EUCERIN

D E I L P P U S

S H P A R G O T O H P

G N U F Y L L E K

S D R O W

mc reportback

MC supports

Sisters with Blisters walk SPECIAL THANKS TO... FFW FOR PARTNERING WITH MC ON THE RIGHT TO RESPECT CAMPAIGN

TO RAISE AWARENESS FOR OUR RIGHT TO RESPECT CAMPAIGN, MC ENCOURAGED PARTICIPANTS TO SIGN UP AT THE EVENT

In October 2013, MC and 1st for Women (FFW) joined forces with 15 powerful South African women, including MC editor Aspasia Karras, Pabi Moloi (pictured below left), Lindiwe Mazibuko and Verashni Pillay, to take to the streets of Cape Town and Johannesburg in support of every woman’s right to respect, sharing their own personal message. The FFW and Jacaranda FM Sisters with Blisters walk on 23 November 2013 marked the official start of the 16 Days of Activism for No Violence Against Women and Children campaign. A record crowd of over 9 000 women, men, kids and dogs hit the streets of Midrand in a firm protest against the abuse of women and children. Aspasia, the MC team and FFW representatives opened the 8.30am four-kilometre race with dogs, holding up the placards featured in the MC November 2013 issue. We handed out magazine copies and encouraged attendees to sign the Right to Respect petition to support our cause. Over R700 000 was raised on the event day for the two charity organizations: Women and Men Against Child Abuse (WMACA) and the Sonke Gender Justice Network (Sonke). The race was also supported by celebs including The Parlotones, Willem Botha, Monique, Heinz Winckler, Louise Carver and Kevin Leo. To download and sign the petition and to view our behindthe-scenes Right to Respect campaign videos, please visit Marieclaire.co.za/right-to-respect.

RIGHTtoRESPECT SPEAK OUT ABOUT YOUR RIGHT TO RESPECT. PLEDGE YOUR SUPPORT ALONG WITH MC AND FFW BY SENDING A PHOTO OF YOU HOLDING THE MANIFESTO TO [email protected], ALSO TWEET @MARIECLAIRE_SA USING #MCRESPECT

38


A M O S T N O E N D N A K A A H N O E D S H P A R G O T O H P

BU LLET IN

mexico

‘We are Princesses in a Land of Machos’

THE TRANSGENDER POPULATION IN THE MEXICAN STATE OF OAXACA IS THRIVING

‘m

any people think of Mexico as a macho country,’ says Mexico City-based photographer Nicola Ókin Frioli. ‘You only need to look at stats about domestic violence, homophobic murders and even the role women generally play within Mexican families.’ From this vantage,the country seems like a strange context for a vibrant transgender community, but in Juchitán, in the southern state of Oaxaca, that is what you’ll find. Juchitán is known for its unusually progressive mentality towards gender roles, and some three thousand transgender people – known as ‘muxes’, and sometimes referred

Jesusa, 33, is dedicated to make-up and makes peinados (a traditional hairstyle) for women in weddings or for the celebration when a girl turns 15. marieclaire.co.za

39

From top to bottom

Toya, 32; Mistica, 32, is a traditional dressmaker.

mexico ‘When I was a child I used to play with my sisters, I dressed as a woman and I made myself up...’ to as Mexico’s ‘third gender’ – live in the town. ‘The era when muxes will be respected and people start seeing them with different eyes is still far away,’ says Frioli. ‘But for the people of Oaxaca this is a reality.’ He set out to document the muxes in his series We are Princesses in a Land of Machos . Once Frioli arrived in the town of Juchitán, his task was clear. ‘All it took was to ask for Mistica,’ he says. Mistica is one of the most famous muxes (in Frioli’s portrait she graces a hammock, yellow skirt offset by a mint-green wall, staring down the lens with sumptuous haughtiness). ‘When I was a child I used to play with my sisters, I dressed as a woman and I made myself up... my mother was happy and used to say she would like a son muxe,’ Mistica told Frioli. ‘My father didn’t accept immediately and decided to bring me to the

40


farm with my brothers, but once [I] arrived, I [ran] to pick up flowers.’ Another muxe Frioli met, Felina, had always been treated as female by her parents. ‘I’m not a man, I’m not a woman: I’m a muxe,’ Felina said. ‘There is place for everybody in the Vineyard of the Lord.’ Gender flexibility is a reality the world over, but what is unique about Juchitán is that it is given space to exist publicly, and perhaps even to thrive. ‘If people were to study the history within their own culture they would likely realize that the concept of a “third sex” has also existed within their society,’ says Frioli. ‘I wanted to portray the muxes with all their dignity and within their environment, like a “deserted island” where homophobia is not common and transvestites don’t have to defend themselves or hide from society.’ Okinreport.net

BULLETIN usa

Anything for fame

WHAT WON’T THE ASPIRANTS OF HOLLYWOOD DO FOR THEIR BIG BREAK?

ow far would you go in search of fame? When so many others would happily take your place, where do you draw the line? At nudity? Sex? Nazi erotica? ‘The only way to resist LA’s pressure is character,’ says Anoush Abrar, whose photographic series Californication documents the strivers of Hollywood. ‘LA is like a big mouth. You can be easily swallowed by it.’ Hollywood is synonymous with the fame game. A constant churning of castings, appearances and exposure – waiting for a few frames that parlay into legitimate prestige. For the majority, however, this moment never comes, and the sacrifices made in the hope of it can, at times, look exploitative. ‘In a world where maximum media exposure is akin to success, image is everything,’ says Abrar. ‘Any and all television, magazine, cinema and internet coverage is important, sought after and in a sense, vital.’ There’s nothing more glamorous than a celebrity, and nothing less glamorous than a wannabe celebrity. And yet,with few exceptions, no-one becomes the one without first being the other. ‘Everybody is in the B-list until there is a convergence between the right moment, right person,’ says Abrar. ‘I wanted to get as close as possible to the young people who flock to this city seeking fame and fortune,’ he says. ‘I was always attracted to the process of “being someone”. Actually it is the same process for almost all the artists: singer, dancer, musician, actor, painter… photographer.’ Abrar often works as a fashion photographer – manufacturing glitz and allure – but in Californication he takes a step back, capturing the emptiness and artifice of the glamour industry: the spruced and scantily clad women, standing licentiously in messy studios, amongst the winding cords of equipment and the blasé attention of photographers. Anoushabrar.com

h

I L O I R F N I K Ó A L O C I N D N A R A R B A H S U O N A S H P A R G O T O H P E K O L C I R E N I O I T A L S N A R T D R O F T R A H A N N A Y B D E L I P M O C

Clockwise from top ‘Carissa’;

‘Jennifer’; an aspiring model poses outside during a shoot; ‘Kim’.

v is i t o ur

s it e

T o w a h a h ow t ht c e e s er v id ie s o o n e , v i c am M a r i t o l if e s it ec l a

ir e . c o .z a

marieclaire.co.za

41

NAKED CAMPAIGN

THE CHEFS

KAMINI PATHER, WINNER OF MASTERCHEF SA, PETE GOFFE-WOOD, MASTERCHEF SA JUDGE.

�� MILLION SOUTH AFRICAN CHILDREN LIVE ON LESS THAN R�0 A DAY. ONLY EIGHT MILLION ARE REACHED BY GOVERNMENT-FUNDED FEEDING SCHEMES. v is i t o ur

s it e

F or b eh in d N ak e e- s d 2 0- t h f oo t a ne s g 14 v i dc e e , i i nf o n eo te r vi e r ma ti o w s a L un n c a b ou t n d M a r h bo x F un d , v T he ie c l a i r e i s i . c o t .z a

36

CELEBRITIES BARE IT ALL IN SUPPORT OF THE LUNCHBOX FUND

AND THE FOUR MILLION CHILDREN THEY AIM TO FEED PRODUCTION JUANITA DANIEL AND SARAH KOOPMAN PHOTOGRAPHS MERWELENE VAN DER MERWE

WITH OFFICIAL BEAUTY PARTNER

THE ACTRESS

CATRIONA ANDREW,TELEVISION AND FILM STAR.

46


naked mc

THE RAPPERS

PROVERB, MUSICIAN, PRODUCER, AND TV AND RADIO PRESENTER, SLIKOUR, HIP-HOP ARTIST AND MUSICIAN.

marieclaire.co.za

47

THE MUSOS

ZEBRA & GIRAFFE: STEFAN HENRICO, ALAN SHENTON, MIKE WRIGHT AND GREG CARLIN; MI CASA: J’SOMETHING, MO-T AND DR. DUDA; SHORTSTRAW: GAD DE COMBES, JAKE RUBINSTEIN, RUSSELL GRANT, ALASTAIR THOMAS AND TOM REVINGTON.

48


naked mc

marieclaire.co.za

49

THE FITNESS GURU

GRAEME RICHARDS, EXPRESSO PRESENTER.

50


naked mc

THE FILM STARS

PETRONELLA TSHUMA, LEAD ACTRESS IN OF GOOD REPORT , ZAKEEYA PATEL, ACTRESS IN MATERIAL AND WINNER OF STRICTLY COME DANCING 2013.

marieclaire.co.za

51

THE MEDIA POWER PLAYERS

NOMUZI MABENA, MTV BASE PRESENTER, CATHERINE GRENFELL, 5FM RADIO PERSONALITY, ZAMA DUBE, YFM RADIO PERSONALITY, AND BOITY THULO,ACTRESS AND TELEVISION PRESENTER.

52


naked mc

marieclaire.co.za

53

THE ADVENTURERS

RYAN SANDES, ULTRA-TRAIL RUNNER, AND FIANCÉE VANESSA HAYWOOD, ACTRESS AND OUTDOOR SPORTS ENTHUSIAST.

54


naked mc

THE DJ

PROTOCULTURE (NATE RAUBENHEIMER), PRODUCER, COMPOSER AND DJ.

marieclaire.co.za

55

THE ENTERTAINERS

MALIBONGWE TYILO, BLOGGER, ATHI-PATRA RUGA, PERFORMANCE ARTIST, MARC LOTTERING, COMEDIAN, KATLEGO MABOE, EXPRESSO PRESENTER, CHAD SAAIMAN, MUSICIAN, AND ANNE HIRSCH, COMEDIAN.

56


naked mc

marieclaire.co.za

57

THE BALLERINA

ADELE BLANK,DANCER AND CHOREOGRAPHER.

58


) E N D W A I O T R E A P M , A ) C ( N W N I T O R T A E P M A C D A ( ) E O G R N I H S P U B O ’ D H O N P ( A A J ) M N N O A T W N O A R E T I D E , S P ) R E A G T C E ( R I U P L L B ’ E O T J N W A T O P D I N S E A S N N S A N W A R L O I Y T A D E H , ) P A ) G G R C U ( R U B N ’ E B ’ O D J R O J ( A ( N F A H E T I E L M R B K E A Y R H Z S I E I L U K E Q K I I R O N F D , ) S A A G R S R E D Y U N B M ’ A A ) O J I N N ( W K G Y P O T D U N E E A K P V A A C ( S M A N M Y I E O A L T S H T N P I , ) K E C I G N R M U T V E B N K ’ O A I J R R ( A H S G R R ) E E I G H L R L I C U V U B ’ E O D T E O J S R I ( Y O D B C N T N A I A T H R W F N A Y S T E T I S L N S S E A T S L S A D I S S ’ N S R A A E ) G N H P R O U I A T R ’ B C G O U O J D T ( S O O R H O P P V

naked mc

THE BIG�WAVE SURFER

CHRIS BERTISH, THE LUNCHBOX FUND AMBASSADOR.

v is i t o ur

s it e

F or b eh in d N ak e e- s c d - t h en f oo e t a s g e, 2 01 v id e o i r v4 i nf o r m a ti on t e i ew s a L un c nd n a b ou ox F u t T he M a r hb nd , v ie c l a i r e i s . c o i t .z a

SHOT ON LOCATION AT NAKED 2014 CAPE TOWN PARTICIPANTS WERE PHOTOGRAPHED AT JOULE CITY INCUBATOR, A COLLECTIVE COMMUNITY AND HUB FOR SHARING KNOWLEDGES IN THE CREATIVE INDUSTRIES. FOR MORE INFORMATION CONTACT JULIA RAYNHAM AT [email protected] OR VISIT FACEBOOK.COM/JOULECITY.

TWEET @MARIECLAIRE SA YOUR FEEDBACK USING #MCNAKED

‘I never realized that something as small as a peanutbutter sandwich could change a child’s life’

60


N A F E V I E L K N Y E L R E E U W R Q E I D M A A H P S A R R I A G H O T N O E H D P R A N H A T E M R B E A Z H I S L I E K R K I O N F S D R N A E K Y Y M D A N N I A G V S P A U M E O K A H T , M S Y R A E I L L L N I I V K E C M D S T I N A O C R G N A R R E F H S C T U N O A T T E S I R S D S A N N A T O I N T A C T U S I D S O S R A P S ’ L R E I E N H A P D A R A T G I N O A T U O J H P N O I E T W R C E U M D O R R E P D

naked mc

LEE-ANN

liebenberg OUR COVER STAR, A MODEL AND SECOND-TIME MOM-TO-BE SHARES THE EMOTIONAL CONNECTION THAT INSPIRED HER TO GO NAKED AND JOIN MC IN SUPPORT OF THE LUNCHBOX FUND WORDS SARAH KOOPMAN

‘i

t breaks my heart that so many children are going hungry. As a mother, it is my natural instinct to feed and protect my babies. I cannot imagine how helpless some mothers must feel not having the resources to be able to provide for their children,’ says cover star Lee-Ann Liebenberg of her participation in the 2014 Naked campaign in support of The Lunchbox Fund. Approximately 65 per cent, more than 12 million, of SA’s children live below the poverty line, with more than 3,6 million of these children orphaned as a result of HIV/ Aids-related deaths. State-funded feeding schemes are only able to reach eight million of these children – many relying on such schemes for their only meal of the day. In an effort to feed the four million children who have slipped through the cracks, The Lunchbox Fund provides a meal a day at schools around the country. Partnering with community-based nongovernment organizations, the fund identifies schools in need and facilitates the provision of lunch for students. The impact of their work is what moved Lee-Ann to support the campaign, she says. ‘I never realized that something as small as a peanut-butter sandwich could change a child’s life. Feeding the children at school encourages them to stay in school and highlights the importance of education. In this way, we are supporting both the healthy bodies and healthy minds that are our future. These are our children, too; it is our responsibility to be part of the solution that will uplift them.’ And as she cradles her growing belly – recreating the iconic Demi Moore for Vanity Fair August 1991 cover as captured by Annie Leibovitz – the second-time mom-to-be considers the significance of her own accountability. Radiant as ever, pregnancy suits the 31-year-old.‘I am so proud to pose with my baby bump, it is such an amazing transformation your body goes through,’ she says. ‘It is an honour to be part of the campaign again this year. I got so emotionally involved last year and jumped at the chance to be part of it again.’ A year ago, Lee-Ann and her daughter Gia, then two years old, were photographed for the 2013 Naked campaign to

raise awareness around organ donation. Now, she graces the campaign’s cover, pregnant with her second child with former polo player and businessman husband Nicky van der Walt. Since family comes first for the 2002 Miss South Africa finalist, it is no wonder that the work The Lunchbox Fund does is close to home for her. ‘I’m using my body to help raise awareness for an incredibly important cause. It definitely goes beyond being naked. I am exposing my own vulnerabilities and there is something deeper to that. It is a beautiful expression of how much I believe in this cause.’ An expression and experience, she says, that is vastly different from anything she has done in more than a decade of modelling. The accolades that come with being Lee-Ann Liebenberg include topping numerous ‘sexiest women alive’ lists, but she has often insisted that her modelling work is simply that – work. What gets her out of bed every morning are the two people she often refers to as ‘her life’ – long-time love Nicky and daughter Gia. Since their marriage in March 2011, and Gia’s birth a few months before, her role as wife and mother has been her top priority.And now that they are adding to their brood, the Van der Walt family is as excited as ever. Not having travelled abroad for work since Gia’s birth, Lee-Ann’s focus on her children will continue with Baby Number Two – affectionately dubbed ‘Baby Bunny’ with its Easter due date. ‘We are all consumed with the arrival of our new little baby and, after giving birth, I will be taking some time off to nurture my family.’ When asked how big-sister-to-be is handling the change in their family, Lee-Ann says she is just as excited and that the family has taken special care to involve her in all aspects of the process. It is important for Lee-Ann to use every opportunity as a learning experience for her young daughter – and her mother’s involvement in causes like this is no different. ‘By being part of campaigns like this and supporting initiatives like The Lunchbox Fund, I would like to teach my children the importance of helping others. I want them to be selfless and always grateful.’ With so many things to be grateful for, Lee-Ann reflects on just how fortunate she and many South Africans like her are. ‘It’s every child’s basic right to have food and it is our responsibility to do what we can to help children who do not have the support they desperately need. Children do not ask to be born, and all they need is love and to be cared for – that is something we can all help to give.’ marieclaire.co.za

61

all about T H E

lunchbox fund WITH MORE THAN 12 MILLION SOUTH AFRICAN CHILDREN LIVING ON LESS THAN R20 A DAY, THE LUNCHBOX FUND IS WORKING HARD TO PROVIDE A MEAL A DAY TO AS MANY AS POSSIBLE. FIND OUT MORE ABOUT THE ORGANIZATION AND HOW YOU CAN HELP, TOO WORDS SARAH KOOPMAN

WHO THEY ARE

WHAT THEY DO

HOW THEY DO IT

The Lunchbox Fund is a non-profit organization dedicated to providing a daily meal for orphaned and vulnerable school children in townships and rural areas of South Africa. The organization has been

Government-funded feeding schemes are only able to reach approximately eight of the 12 million children who desperately need their help. The Lunchbox Fund aims to

The Lunchbox Fund partners with community- based non-government organizations and the Department of Education to evaluate schools. Children are identified by school heads

feeding impoverished school children since 2005; by partnering with small local businesses and entrepreneurs in the communities they serve, they are able to provide the children in need with healthy meals that nourish their bodies and minds. The Lunchbox Fund works with several schools, providing over one million meals annually.

feed the four million children who have fallen through the cracks and aren’t receiving the support they need. Providing a daily meal – often the only one these children receive every day – at school they are able to encourage school attendance.

and teachers as being in need of feeding.The fund then distributes the donations they have received to its community partners who buy and deliver nutritionally enriched, easy-store food to schools. Attendance register is taken daily and The Lunchbox Fund is provided with a collated attendance report each term, upon receipt of which it will confirm continuation of the programme for the following term.

healthy and happy

A standard meal from The Lunchbox Fund includes a peanut-butter sandwich on brown bread, fruit and something to drink. In some communities, the fund may provide a hot meal consisting of soup, maize meal, soya mince, samp, sugar beans and rice. Providing a substantial and nutritious meal at school encourages attendance of the children on the project. The knock-on effect is remarkable: children who stay in school are less exposed to HIV/Aids infection and abuse, and at-risk behaviour is reduced. These children feel connected, involved and cared for, leading to a greater motivation to achieve both in school and beyond.

for the community, by the community

Integral to the success of The Lunchbox Fund project is its partnership with local gogos and mothers, who are recruited to prepare meals and are paid a stipend for their work. The Lunchbox Fund thus empowers these women in their communities and creates income generation, which encourages further community involvement and upliftment. This ‘on the ground’ monitoring network enables community members to assist in identifying children at risk, those in need of nutritional support and those not attending school. Each project is then tailored to the needs of the community, rather than imposing a ‘one size fits all’ policy. In this way, each school is able to find the best way to flourish with the support of The Lunchbox Fund.

T OPAZ PAGE-GREEN

the lunchbox fund founder

South African-born New Yorker, Topaz Page-Green, was inspired to do something to feed the millions of hungry children in her home country after visiting a few local schools with a friend more than 10 years ago. On one such visit, there was a group of children sitting away from those who had lunch to eat – because they couldn’t bear to watch others eat as they went hungry. Devastated, Topaz started work with local bakers who helped provide lunches for the children the government-funded feeding schemes couldn’t reach. From initially feeding 100 children a year, the fund grew to feeding 5 000 a day and continues to expand. Using her exposure to the New York social elite,Topaz has spread the word of The Lunchbox Fund’s work – encouraging the support of names including Bill Clinton, Yoko Ono, Liv Tyler and Cameron Diaz, among others. Feeding children through The Lunchbox Fund is Topaz’s passion and her primary focus is to spread the news about its work to reach as many of South Africa’s hungry children as she can.

62


T D E E R B A S I R A M S N O I T A R T S U L L I R E M E L L I P X N O J D N A D N U F X O B H C N U L E H T © , D E I L P P U S , S E R U T A E F X E R , E W R E M R E D N A V E N E L E W R E M S H P A R G O T O H P

naked mc

v is i t o u r

s it e

� LATTE

COULD FEED � CHILDREN � MEAL FOR � DAY

how to help DONATE Just R10 can feed four children a day. That means that one extra latte could feed eight children. R505 can feed one child for a whole school year. Visit Thelunchboxfund.org to donate online via Network For Good. PARTNER WITH THE FUND By contacting The Lunchbox Fund at [email protected] find out about collaborating on a feeding project through your company, school or organization.

W t ch T op aa z a n i nt e - G o ut P ag e r vi e h at f or P w w i th T hw g r ee n oi n LU m e a e L un g c h n ak S fi nd b n t t o f ea o e a x F u ed o nd r ed c ch M a tu r ie c l a el eb f o ur i re . c s o n o .z a

R2,50

FEEDS � CHILD, � MEAL, � SCHOOL DAY

How to donate EFT ACCOUNT NAME: The Lunchbox Fund BANK: FNB BRANCH CODE: 260950 ACCOUNT NUMBER: 62382568403 *The Lunchbox Fund is a Section 21 non-profit organization and all contributions are tax deductible to the fullest extent permitted by law.

VOLUNTEER To lend your time and expertise to the fund, send your name, contact details and area of expertise to [email protected]. FEEDIE In August 2013, The Lunchbox Fund launched the first-ever philanthropy app for foodies, Feedie. The mobile app turns our passion for snapping and sharing food photos into sharing actual food with children in need. Once registered, Feedies find participating restaurants using the app’s map feature and share photographs of their meals on the app. The restaurant then donates R2,50 – the estimated cost of a meal for a child – to The Lunchbox Fund. Linked to Facebook, Google Plus,Twitter and Foursquare, Feedies are able to spread the word and awareness about the fund and the plight of South Africa’s hungry children. Feedie is currently available for iPhone 4, iPhone 4s, and iPhone 5. Download for free on the iTunes App Store. The app will be launched for Android in 2014. Wethefeedies.com

celebrities affiliated with the lunchbox fund:

S o u BIG-WAVE SURFER Going naked for the cause, the big-wave surfer, waterman and t adventurer (Mavericks Big Wave International Champion and Open h Ocean SUP Guinness World Record Holder) strongly believes in the A power of nourishing the mind and encouraging children to believe they can achieve anything. His personal motto – ‘Impossible isn’t a word, it’s a challenge!’ – f r sums up the essence of what the fund strives to do: take on the challenge of nourishing i c the bodies and minds of four million South African children. a n FF O H EL P M TE R PE TE a m EXECUTIVE CHEF The man behind world-renowned restaurant The Greenhouse and the b newly-opened Mondiall, Peter Tempelhoff is one of the most recognized a South African names in the international culinary world – a name he has now lent in support of Feedie and The Lunchbox Fund. His love for South s s African cuisine has seen him explore local flavours and push the boundaries of a incorporating them in a host of unusual dishes. Having joined chefs Mario Batali and d Jamie Oliver as a Global Feedie Ambassador, Tempelhoff has registered Mondiall, in o the V&A Waterfront, Cape Town, as a Feedie restaurant. Download the app and visit r Mondiall to make your contribution to The Lunchbox Fund’s work while experiencing s an exquisite menu from the best in the business. CHRIS BER TISH

TRO W G W YNE TH PAL

LI V T YLER HUGH MASEKELA

X JOAQUIN PHOENI

YOUTUBE:TH ELUNCH BOXFUND

@THELUNCHBOXFUND

DESMOND TU TU

find out more To find out more about the work The Lunchbox Fund does and how to get involved, visit their online channels:

FACEBOOK.COM/THELUNCHBOXFUND

marieclaire.co.za

63

behind the scenes

WITH OFFICIAL BEAUTY PARTNER ELIZABETH ARDEN

GO BEHIND THE SCENES OF OUR NAKED CAMPAIGN �0��, IN SUPPORT OF THE LUNCHBOX FUND, TO LEARN EXPERT TIPS FROM OUR OFFICIAL BEAUTY PARTNER ELIZABETH ARDEN’S SENIOR MAKE-UP ARTIST, GINA MYERS

To watch our behind-the-scenes videos from Naked 2014,visit Marieclaire.co.za

o

d t b e r g w e w a n t e u t r a l, n e b i n i r l, L i e y n e - A n n d c o v e r g u s e d v e r e S h a d o w r e e L o e , y F l r g i r ’ s N a k k. W e o l o r E u m s. r C o v e ie C la ire p a c t l o o a u t if u l C t h e r e d P l t if u l C o l o l ip ’. e a h - im s B e Mar e a u u d e ‘ A s v e r a h i g s u c h a k i a n d H u s e d B im a t e n d e l i t h y t o n e s s s i c K h a m o u r w e e t h e u l t e a r s h e l l, C l a c h o f g l a t o a c h i e v S e a fi n a l t o u p G l o s s t h e i n o u s L i L u m

TIP

When choosing the perfect foundation apply three shades, that are the closest match to your skin tone, along your jaw line and into your neckline. The shade that ‘disappears’ is your perfect match.

64


) T C ( N E R U U V N A V E S N A J A I L U J D N A ) B H J ( S U I R O T E R P O D L A W S H P A R G O T O H P

GINA MYERS

Petronella Tshuma

‘For Petronella, we wanted to intensify her look by focusing on her eyes only. We used Beautiful Color Eye Shadow in Spice to create a natural copper smoky eye and layered on plenty of mascara for a lot more drama. A dash of Pure Finish Mineral Bronzing Powder added to her glow.’

Offering her beauty skills to celebrities, editorial spreads, campaigns and wedding parties throughout the country, Gina Myers is one of SA’s leading make-up experts and Senior Make-up Artist for Elizabeth Arden, MC ’s official beauty partner for Naked 2014. Myers believes make-up should enhance your natural beauty, not mask it, a belief firmly in line with our vision for the Naked photo shoot. In order to help women highlight their individual beauty, she stresses the importance of applying the right foundation to look and feel your best. Here she shares her expert step-by-step guide for applying your perfect foundation.

STEP BY STEP 1. For a flawless finish, begin by applying

TIP Flawless Finish Perfectly Nude Makeup SPF 15 shrinks your pores by 20 per cent within four weeks and imparts a luminous, ‘second-skin’ look that lasts all day.

a dime-sized amount of Flawless Finish Perfectly Nude Makeup SPF 15 to the back of the hand. Using a foundation brush, sweep small amounts of product onto skin starting at the centre of the face, working outward. Make sure to blend well along the hairline and jaw line for a seamless and natural look. 2. To highlight: sweep the Flawless Finish Correcting and Highlighting Perfector Pen along the length of the nose, height of the cheekbones, inner corners of the eyes and Cupid’s bow of the lips. Blend product into your skin for a natural luminosity. 3. Use Beautiful Color Eye Shadow in Heathered Plums along the creases fading from outer corners to inner corners of the eyes.Use Classic Khaki on the outer corners of the lids, fade slightly into the creases and the lower lash lines. Highlight with Beautiful Color Eye Shadow in Seashell from the creases to the brows and add to the bottom lash lines by the tear ducts. Finish off the eyes with several coats of Beautiful Color Mascara in Black. 4. To finish off the look apply Beautiful Color Luminous Lip Gloss in Latte starting from the centre of the lips and smoothing outward.

ELIZABETHARDEN.CO.ZA FACEBOOK.COM/ELIZABETHARDEN

@EARDENSA #MCNAKED

mc competition

In celebration of our Naked issue, 16 lucky readers will receive an exclusive hamper from our official beauty partner, Elizabeth Arden, filled with products from the Visible Difference skincare range, make-up from the Beautiful Color collection and lightweight and breathable liquid foundations from the NEW Flawless Finish range, plus the luxurious and modern Untold EDP. Elizabetharden.co.za

Untold Eau De Parum

win

�� LUCKY MARIE CLAIRE READERS WILL WIN AN ELIZABETH ARDEN HAMPER VALUED AT OVER R2 855!

Flawless Finish Perfectly Nude Makeup Flawless Finish Correcting and Highlighting Perector Foundation Brush Beautiul Color Lash Enhancing Mascara Visible Difference Optimizing Skin Serum Visible Difference Good Morning Retexturizing Primer Eight Hour® Cream Skin Protectant Fragrance Free All valued at R2 855

D E I L P P U S S H P A R G O T O H P

HOW TO ENTER

TO STAND A CHANCE OF WINNING THIS FANTASTIC PRIZE, SEND AN SMS TO 35438 BEFORE 31 MARCH 2014. DON’T USE PUNCTUATION AND BEGIN YOUR MESSAGE WITH ‘MC ELIZABETH ARDEN’ FOLLOWED BY YOUR NAME, SURNAME, POSTAL ADDRESS AND E-MAIL ADDRESS. (SMS COSTS R1,50; SEE STOCKISTS PAGE FOR COMPETITION RULES.)

66


sneak peek mc

MY WORLD

MARIE CLAIRE AND SA STYLE AWARDS �0��

STREET STYLE WINNER ANTHEA POULOS TALKS ABOUT HER MENSWEAR-INSPIRED LOOK AND HOW SHE CAME TO BE A CITY GIRL AS TOLD TO AIMEE CARELSE

try to be in places that allow me to be out on the street. Growing up in Jo’burg, I never really left the bounds of my school, home or mall. I wanted to be more of a city dweller than Jo’burg allowed me to be at the time. After school, I lived in Cape Town for eight years and have been back in Jo’burg for two years. After visiting regularly for work I realized it was becoming the kind of city I always wanted it to be. I was a complete tomboy growing up in the ‘90s, heavily influenced by my two older brothers who were into hip-hop culture. I think this was the biggest influence on who I am today. I have always had a tendency to become completely engrossed in one particular culture and dressing that way. My looks have ranged from nu-rave to rockabilly to hip-hop. Now, I love the idea of simplicity. I wear mostly black and am interested in creating complexity though materials and fabrics, layering with white, grey and denim.As my personal style is so simple, my creativity

‘i E E G C Y M B R N I T E L S L I U J K E S M H O P L A A R H G S O T P U O H E P K A S M N Y L E A H L I A R N A A J H L I N H O I A S T C G U I N D L O Y R T P S

and love for colour shows in my home. My friends laugh at me because I shop like a tourist, but I love our local design sensibility and African curios. I am obsessed with accessories and collecting interesting jewellery. Sneakers are the ultimate accessory. I love the innovative way they combine style and comfort. I like interesting cuts and shirt dresses, specifically those that use highvolume cuts, but my favourite fashion items are probably jackets. I’d say the biggest influence on my style is Rick Owens. I have always found men’s fashion more dynamic and interesting. Sam and Shaka from Art Comes First have been a major influence and I also love Comme des Garçons, Marithé + François Girbaud, Rei Kawakubo and Gwen Stefani. M.I.A. also inspired my style for a long time. When I found out I was the MC and SA Style Awards 2013 Street Style winner I was excited. I know the other nominees and each has their own fabulous fashion sense. I’m glad people enjoy my style and humbled that they’d go out of their way to vote for me. I work for (the consumer collaboration agency) Instant Grass as a youth-culture specialist. We have a network of smart, connected Grasses (slang for “snitches”), and we collaborate with them to solve business problems for brands and innovate new products. People approach me for advice on projects they’re working on, which inspired my blog name, Anthea Knows Best.I understand young people in this country in a way that I value more than I can tell you. They have helped shaped who I am.’

Clockwise from far left Anthea at

her dining room table; Anthea’s MC Street Style entry; unique pieces on one of her side tables; in her living room surrounded by her collectables; her jewellery pieces; toys and figurines; framed pictures; a peak at her shoe collection; decorative candles.

v is i t o ur

s it e

T o r ea i n r v d t he M a ri te ie w v i f ul l ec l a s i r e . c oi t .z a

marieclaire.co.za

67

THEN

i 68


had one week to choose a husband. In absolute agony, I felt as if I were already falling to my death. Over the next few days, I felt like the walking dead. All roads seemed to lead to a hopeless future. One night, just four days before I was to be married, I went into my bathroom to get ready for bed, glancing into the mirror. My eyes were sunken and colourless, surrounded by greying, sallow skin. Months of righteous fasting for the failing health of my late husband and Prophet, Rulon Jeffs, had played havoc on my body, but it was my spirit that felt broken. After all the years of striving to be a good church member and a good wife – one of 65 – to a man chosen for me, I was tired. Trying to look at my options with less fear, I kept coming up against a door I didn’t dare to open. If I did, I would have to rely on the kindness of the outside world. That thought petrified me, nearly as much as marrying again. I couldn’t begin to think of how to live among murderers, rapists and thieves – the wicked, corrupt, ignorant and unkind people of this world, as outsiders had been described to us since birth. Wicked…

unkind… Was that really my experience? Memories flooded my mind: sympathetic neighbours who helped us after our house fire, a former violin teacher who nurtured my talent, the owner of a stringed-instrument shop who encouraged me to play. A memory I had carefully tucked away whirled into my consciousness. Walking into the Sears department store in St. George as a young bride, searching for vacuum parts. Briefly separated from my sister-wives, I strode alone into the appliances section, where I was unexpectedly mesmerized by a vast sea of televisions, which displayed the most striking black woman on every screen. It was sacrilegious to watch, but the woman was captivating. Even as cloistered from the world as I had been, I recognized the face of Oprah Winfrey. Interviewing a woman who had become a foster mother to a whole neighbourhood of cast-off children – transients, runaways, children of addicts and so on – Oprah was celebrating her generous heart, and even gifted her with items that would serve her hodgepodge

must read mc

I was

THE WEDDING DAY

NOW

married at to an 1985 year-old WIFE OF THE PROPHET OF THE FUNDAMENTALIST CHURCH OF JESUS CHRIST OF LATTER-DAY SAINTS, REBECCA MUSSER THOUGHT SHE WAS FREE AFTER HIS DEATH SEVEN YEARS LATER � UNTIL SHE WAS TOLD SHE MUST REMARRY. SO SHE ESCAPED FROM HER FAITH, FAMILY AND THE ONLY WAY OF LIFE SHE HAD EVER KNOWN WORDS REBECCA MUSSER

Clockwise from top left Rebecca Musser

as a teenager (fourth from the right) with six of her sisters at home in Salt Lake City; at age 19 when she became 85-yearold Rulon Jeffs’ 19th wife, 1995; Musser in 2011.

family. I was floored. Those two beautiful women completely refuted everything I had ever been taught about the outside world – especially about black people! Our new church leader, Warren Jeffs, said blacks were from the seed of Cain, and he used words like ‘uncouth’, ‘wild’ and ‘ignorant’, ‘immoral’, and ‘filthy’, saying they were cursed, loved Satan, loved evil, and that not one soul was clean, pure or righteous. He had been wrong. At the time, I had to put that knowledge on the shelf with so many other things that did not mesh with our teachings. Now, I took a long, hard look at all the things that Warren had said were absolutely true that I knew were not. I pulled that nugget of wisdom regarding Oprah and the lovely people I had met in the outside world off the shelf and tucked it into my heart, where it belonged. If I was going to leave, I would have to take a chance on the kindness of strangers, and that outside world, whatever it held for me. Once again I thought of Warren but, this time, I felt a fire ignite in

my belly; I would not allow myself to be broken. In the pre-dawn hours of Sunday morning, I put a note on my bed for Christine, my mom, and my sisters. Taking an exit to avoid the cameras and any of the men on security patrol, I pushed the heavy oak door quietly behind me until I heard the latch click shut. My heart pounding, I walked as casually as I could, as if I were out for a stroll on the grounds. I made my way around the side of the massive Jeffs mansion, then turned abruptly toward the fence. The gates were locked, as I knew they would be. Long skirt and all, I scaled the tall fence that protected the Jeffs family from ‘outsiders and wicked apostates’. In doing so, I became one of them.The spikes at the top were tricky to manage in my long skirt, yet nothing compared to the half-mile walk I had to trek to meet Ben, fighting my urge to bolt back to my sister-wives, whom I was having great difficulty leaving. Technically, Ben was my grandson as he was Rulon’s 19-year-old grandson with a sister-wife. He didn’t marieclaire.co.za

69

believe that I should be forced to do anything I didn’t want to. After I finally reached the backside of ALCO, a Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (FLDS) member-run business, Ben rounded the corner in his brother’s shimmery gold truck, loaded with a mini trailer from his previous employer. My heart flooded with relief and continued to pump wildly as we passed our neighbours’ homes on the way to Highway 59, which would draw us toward Las Vegas and on to Oregon where my brother Cole lived. He had been kicked out of the FLDS six years earlier when he tried to shield our younger siblings from a beating. In the silence of the growing light, I stole furtive glances at Ben, whom I barely knew. I had just left everything and nearly everyone I’d ever known, and so had he. I tried to fathom why in the world he would do this for me. Ben had already scandalized himself and his family by kissing me one day, but he would place himself in very real danger if he

not a liar nor a thief, I’d had to steal my own belongings away to claim my very life. When my letter of explanation was discovered in the light of day, Warren was adamant in the order he issued to the community: find us before nightfall, ‘to save that girl’s soul before she commits adultery’. All of Warren’s brothers and several members of the God Squad were sent on a massive manhunt for us, scouring Colorado City, St. George, Cedar City and the surrounding environs. He used the threat of adultery to get the men to move quickly, as a woman’s virtue was prized among the FLDS. However, Warren was also very concerned about something else, though I wouldn’t understand that until much later. As the former Prophet’s widow, I knew far too much about the inner working of the Jeffs family and the true undertakings of the FLDS. I was a dangerous liability to the new Prophet. People in the rest stops and restaurants stared curiously at our attire and my hairstyle.

Though not a liar nor a thief, I’d had to steal my own belongings away to claim my very life

had the audacity to turn against Warren and escape with the Prophet’s wife. For two days before I left, I attended every meal and class so it wouldn’t occur to Warren that anything was different. Carefully,I had selected only a few favourite long dresses from the closet, so that it would still look full. I couldn’t leave all my photos and scrapbooks behind, as my family and friends were too precious. Neither could I leave my sewing machine, nor the boxes of material in my closet. Besides music lessons, I had felt that sewing would be my only way to make a living on the outside.That thought still terrified me. Making sure my room looked as if everything was still intact, I’d had to sneak the most important items out without being seen, then hide them somewhere off the Jeffs’ estate. Though

70


A FLDS woman must never cut her hair because, as the New Testament story in Luke describes Mary and another woman washing Jesus’ feet and drying them with her hair, so must we do for our husbands. Once in Oregon, I was paralysed by fear of the outside world. I had no idea how to do my hair, how to dress, and what customs, holidays, or social rituals to follow. I was still wearing long dresses, the only clothes I owned, and poufing my hair, so Cole decided to take me shopping. ‘Buy whatever you want,’ he said. With no idea what to choose, I ended up with a jogging suit and a shirt in the shocking and onceforbidden shade of red. Afterward, Cole brought me to a hair salon. I was terrified: I had never cut my hair, except to trim the ends. I wasn’t facing the mirror, but I blanched

must read mc as I saw my rich brown locks hit the ground. My hair was gone; it now looked ugly and made me feel that way inside. For days I cried in private, feeling homesick and missing my mother and sisters and friends desperately. In the meantime, Ben and I needed to start earning money. Two weeks and countless applications later, we both got jobs at restaurants. Everything was new,exciting, thrilling and sobering to me. I began reading voraciously, following Cole’s recommendations. I was fascinated by the philosophies of successful people like Stephen Covey, Joe Vitale and Deepak Chopra. Excitedly, I sat on Cole’s front porch and called my mother for the first time, anxious to share with her what I was learning in life and through books. While she was glad to know I was safe and relieved I had reconnected with Cole, she was negative about everything else, telling me I was trading my salvation for material goods. She was more closed off than I had ever heard her. Warren’s warnings had clearly From far left to right Musser

playing roller hockey (front centre), a rare pastime; on her fifth wedding anniversary, 2000; her memoir.

D E I L P P U S D N A N A M P R E O C O K N H E A P R S A T S T A T M X E S T H L P A A N R O I G T I O T D O D H A P

affected her. I knew she had been ordered not to talk to me, and that I was supposed to be ‘dead’ to her. She risked her FLDS membership and salvation by the very act of communicating with her apostate children. People had been kicked out for less.

w

hen I watched television, I was surprised and often scandalized by how different it was from when we were kids. One night Cole and Ben and I watched an R-rated movie in which a man and a woman had sex, and I became alarmed when they started making noises – loud ones! Did everyone in the outside world do that? Cole had noticed that Ben and I were getting closer and was emphatic

that Ben was welcome to stay as long as there was nothing sexual between us. Unfortunately, it was a tough promise to keep. We both wished to honour Cole’s request, but we felt magnetically drawn to each other. One day, Cole insisted that I watch a movie called The Truman Show . The main character, Truman Burbank, is adopted as a baby by a television studio. As he grows, every important person in his life is simply an actor; every part of his life is a set – but he doesn’t know it. Whenever he wants something the production team can’t provide, he’s told that it’s just not available. ‘Why would you want that?’ different characters ask him. ‘Your life is so perfect the way it is.’ When he starts realizing that things just aren’t right, he finally faces his fear of water and sets off in a boat for the horizon. Barely surviving a violent and horrendous storm manufactured by the producers, Truman discovers the horizon is a painted backdrop and realizes that his entire life has been a lie – set up for the camera and the benefit of strangers, the viewers. Full of disappointment with his false relationships, he walks off the set and into his new life. The movie mirrored my own life. Before every decision I’d ever made, I’d asked myself: what would the Prophet have me say or do? For every question, there had been an appropriate, programmed answer. I was never allowed my own opinion; I had never developed the ability to choose. All of my people were like that, too. How had our belief system become so screwed up? I gave myself permission to look deeply at polygamy in a way I never had before. All of a sudden, nothing seemed holy about the structure that must be in place for polygamy to work. Why would God put a roughly equal number of males and females on the earth if he wanted a polygamous society? This structure meant women didn’t get the time, affection and validation they so crave. And, because only a select number of male leaders are righteous enough to receive multiple wives, not only do a high number of young men get kicked out, but the marriageable ages of girls becomes increasingly younger as demand intensifies. Throw these factors into a climate in which the leaders make the people feel as if they can never question those leaders because that means questioning God himself, and one has a recipe for spiritual abuse. Every way I examined it, polygamy was neither healthy nor holy. Why could no-one see it? For days I was furious, and all I knew was I did not want that perverse dictator Warren directing my show from his self-righteous pulpit. NOW 37, REBECCA MUSSER WAS THE KEY STATE WITNESS IN THE 2008 TRIALS OF WARREN JEFFS AND SEVERAL FLDS LEADERS INVOLVING SEXUAL ASSAULT. SHE SPEAKS OUT FOR WOMEN WHO SUFFER FROM ALL FORMS OF OPPRESSION SUCH AS HUMAN TRAFFICKING AND SEXUAL SLAVERY. SHE IS THE FOUNDER OF CLAIM RED FOUNDATION, A NON-PROFIT ORGANIZATION, AND LIVES IN IDAHO WITH HER FAMILY. EDITED EXCERPT FROM THE WITNESS WORE RED: THE 19TH WIFE WHO BROUGHT POLYGAMOUS CULT LEADERS TO JUSTICE BY REBECCA MUSSER WITH M. BRIDGET COOK. COPYRIGHT 2013 BY REBECCA MUSSER. REPRINTED WITH GRAND CENTRAL PUBLISHING’S PERMISSION. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

POLYGAMY The social practice in the rest of the world In South Africa, it is often assumed that polygamous marriages are commonplace in rural communities, but conversely is not the cultural norm. It is often not economically viable for one man to adequately provide for multiple wives. Historically, polygamy is a social practice that aims to ensure the financial support of widows and their children. While it is legally recognized by the Customary Marriages Act in South Africa,a 2010 survey conducted by research company TNS showed that 74 per cent of the 2 000 South Africans surveyed were opposed to the practice – with women making up 83 per cent of those against polygamy. But its legitimacy involves more than a simple decision to take another wife. For a polygamous marriage to be legally recognized, men must get permission from their existing wives to take on a new spouse. They must then receive a court-approved written contract that will regulate future arrangements with their respective marriages. In this way, all wives are legally protected should anything in the relationship go wrong. However, if the court does not vet the cultural practice, the women in the relationship have no security should they divorce or choose to leave. Much like Hugh Hefner’s countless girlfriends in the Playboy Mansion, there is little to be done to protect women in polyamorous relationships – where there is knowledge of more than one intimate relationship, but no legal legitimacy. While women’s rights are safeguarded with a legal polygamous marriage, a woman does not have the option of taking more than one husband. Polyandry is only legal in Tibet. While it is regarded as culturally permissible in some customs, it is rejected by most of the world and major religions. In 2013, a Kenyan woman made headlines by entering into a contractual agreement with two men she had been seeing for four years. Neither felt they could live without her, so they both agreed to take on the role of husband, allowing her to decide how she would divide her time with them. marieclaire.co.za

71

The ‘LOOK A T ME’ economy ‘STUFF’ IS SO �000-AND-LATE. NOW, INSTEAD, WE WORSHIP ‘EXPERIENCES’. BUT ARE WE SEIZING THE DAY, OR ARE WE JUST SHOWING OFF? WORDS ANNA HARTFORD

72

marie claire

march 2014

trend report mc

‘Unique experiences, and not just f or the affluent, are social currency’

don’t want any more things,’ a friend says, advising on birthday gifts. ‘I’d much rather do something new than own something new.’ It’s a preference you hear more and more nowadays: instead of the uncouth accumulation of flashy ‘stuff’, the highminded trend has increasingly been leaning towards accumulating experiences – a meal in a Michelin-starred restaurant, a scuba course, a trip to Senegal. If we were once material girls living in a material world, we now seem to have

‘i

morphed into ephemeral girls: worshipping not what we hold onto, but what slips by. It’s the buzzword of the last decade – ‘experience’. In some respects, this sounds grand. After all, what could be more precious, or meaningful, than the endeavour to fill your life with beauty, novelty, delight and awe? The feeling of being beneath a jacaranda, unwrapping a madeleine from a delicate ruffle of tissue paper, taking that first nibble as the breeze cools your flushed skin. Is this what we mean by seizing the day? Is this

the fabled power of now? The palm trees sashaying as your Lilo ebbs towards the horizon, a Champagne punch cocktail held loosely in your one hand, and your iPhone 5s clutched firmly in the other – just uploading a quick ‘pic’ before you return to being utterly present… and then just uploading one more… But rather than an improvement on wanton materialism, the experience fixation can look like another version of it. Instead of indicating your superiority based on what you have, you marie claire. co.za

73

mc trend report

indicate it on the basis of what you’ve done. The famed American economist Thorstein Veblen coined the term ‘conspicuous leisure’ at the end of the 19th century. A variation of the more famous conspicuous consumption, conspicuous leisure is the implicit advertising of one’s status with ostentatious displays of pleasure and relaxation; a lengthy exotic holiday, say, from which you return with little souvenirs, or from which you send a few postcards (‘Wish I was here! Oh wait… I am!’). Perhaps by the standards of 19-whenever, that sort of thing qualified as exorbitantly boastful, but needless to say: it has nothing on us. Posting boastful albums is half the point of being on social media. Think of that endless procession of perfectly plated food, or all those photos of limbs sizzling in front of coastal vistas. It’s not just your friends’ experiences that you’re invited to ogle, but those of the rich and famous too: Alessandra Ambrosio star-fish leaping in the surf, and sprawled on the front of a yacht, Candice Swanepoel in bright delight in St. Tropez, and a bikini-clad Rihanna in every mode of recline in Barbados (after which British Airways claimed a 130 per cent increase in trips to the island). The Travel Market Report listed conspicuous leisure as one of the travel trends to watch in 2014. ‘Unique experiences, and not just for the affluent, are social currency,’ says Chris Fair, president of Resonance Consultancy, which researches emerging luxury markets. Social media has allowed this currency to be traded more successfully than ever before. Coupled with our immense ability to broadcast, the whole ‘experience’ directive becomes, at the very least, multifunctional. You’re not simply enjoying something – a little moment within your conscious awareness – you are advertising that you are the kind of person who values these things: you’re the laid-back surfer chick, you’re the quirky autumnal-leaf tosser, the soulful sunrise contemplator, the free-loving water rafter. To keep up with the Joneses, we might once have ventured out to invest in the right Tupperware set and patentleather pumps; now we go out and replicate a version of the Jones’s Facebook albums. You go to Pisa, and take that picture of yourself pushing the tower back, you sit on the mosaic steps of Rio, you go to Manhattan, order the Magnolia Bakery cupcake you saw the Joneses eating, and you eat it. Washed down with home-made almond milk.

74

marie claire

march 2014

It’s a trend that has been happily embraced by the proliferators of marketing lingo. You don’t purchase a movie ticket nowadays, you have a ‘cinema experience’ (you haven’t tried Nu Metro’s Scene yet?); you aren’t getting a BMW, but the ‘BMW experience’. Not to forget those MasterCard ads: New designer outfit? $250. New lipstick? $35. Evening bag? $90. The look on your ex-boyfriend’s face? Priceless. ‘Experience is becoming the predominant economic offering,’ B. Joseph Pine II, co-author of the books The Experience Economy and Authenticity: What Consumers Really Want , posits in a TED talk (which he calls the ‘experience capital’ of conferences). But, far from being ‘priceless’, these experiences come with a hefty mark-up. Pine takes the example of coffee:‘You know how much coffee is worth, when treated as a commodity as a bean? Two or three [US] cents per cup,’ he says. But as it makes its way from a commodity to a good, and a good to a service, and then from a service to an ‘experience’, the price jumps up exponentially. ‘Surround that brewing of coffee with the ambiance of a Starbucks, with the authentic cedar that goes inside there, and now because of that authentic experience you can charge two or three, maybe $5 (over R50), for a cup of coffee.’ What’s more, aside from being fleeced, we are being dictated to about what qualifies as the right kind of experience – the ‘priceless’ kind, as opposed to the dime-store experiences we’re having all day. We’ve all gotten used to the pretentions of coffee, but behold the next frontier: toast! Once the humblest of meals, beloved by students on a deadline and frazzled mothers of six, toast is auditioning to be the latest artisanal cuisine. In Los Angeles, the restaurant Sqirl (and a few others beside) has begun selling slices for $7 (over R70) a pop. How good could this toast experience possibly be? Asked what change he’d make to the marketing industry if he could, James H. Gilmore (Pine’s co-author) said, ‘I would ban the word “marketing”. Instead I would call it “customering”, and I would call the industry “demand creation”.’ Demand creation? In a world where this is a plausible description of events, it seems advisable to foster a constant suspicion about our own desires. Where we were once bamboozled by the need to own certain things, we’re now bamboozled by the need to experience certain things. We didn’t need all that stuff, and we probably don’t need all these experiences: at least not the way they’re sold to us, and the way we continue to sell them to each other. Life might be made worthwhile by the occasional exceptional moment, but in truth, these almost never arrived dolled up, with a ribbon and a price tag on top; nor do they regularly pause and pose for a photograph.

‘To keep up with the Joneses, we might once have ventured out to invest in the right Tupperware set (…); now we go out and replicate a version of the Jones’s Facebook albums’

S O T O H P K C O T S K N I H T / S E G A M I O L L A G S H A R G O T O H P

international report mc

‘Just because I’M IN A

wheelchair, DOESN’T MEAN WORDS SUSANNAH BRESLIN

I’m not

beautiul!’

AT A BEAUTY COMPETITION FOR GIRLS AND WOMEN WITH SPECIAL NEEDS, A GROUP IS DELIGHTED TO BE SEEN AS SOMETHING OTHER THAN DISABLED

�� Tierney McKown with her Junior Miss You Can Do It trophy. marieclaire.co.za

75

‘c

an I borrow you?’ Abbey Curran asks and extends an arm. She hooks her arm around mine and together we walk the red carpet that has been rolled out in the lobby of Kewanee High School, where she was a pupil eight years ago.Wearing a one-shoulder chocolate-brown dress with a pouf skirt and rhinestones at the waist, the 26-year-old moves with a determined hitch to her gait, her slender,perfectly tanned legs buckling slightly at the knees, unfazed by her Perspex high heels. At the age of two she was diagnosed with cerebral palsy, a neurological disorder that impairs mobility. Tonight, Curran, who was crowned Miss Iowa in 2008, is presiding over a different kind of beauty competition, one she founded 10 years ago for girls and women with special needs: the Miss You Can Do It Pageant. Curran grew up in Kewanee, a town in north-west Illinois, billed as the Hog Capital of the World. It is surrounded by rolling green hills dotted with red barns and grain silos. Her parents, a hog farmer and a nurse, refused to treat their daughter, an only child, like an invalid. ‘They never told me that I couldn’t do anything,’ she says. Instead, they pushed her to do anything she wanted, with one condition: she couldn’t quit. Early on, Curran was obsessed with pageants. As a little girl, she would �� dress up in gowns to watch the Miss USA and Miss America competitions �� on TV. ‘I just liked the girly-girly aspect,’ she confesses. In high school, she discovered, to her dismay, that boys her age didn’t consider her girlfriend material. She was pretty, but she felt that they couldn’t see beyond her Abbey Curran,who disability. So,she signed up to compete in the beauty pageant at the county has cerebral palsy and founded the fair. People told her she was crazy. She was placed in the top 10. pageant 10 years After high school, she enrolled at St Ambrose University in Davenport, ago. Opposite Iowa, and graduated in business communications. One day an application Natasha Nimrick, 17, triumphs on for the Miss Iowa USA pageant arrived in the post. A family friend who her 10th stab at worked in the pageant world told her that even considering applying was the Miss You Can absurd. According to the woman, Curran recalls, ‘There are people who Do It Pageant title. are meant to be in the NFL, and people who aren’t, and I’m not meant for the NFL, in terms of Miss USA pageants.’ The discouragement only strengthened her resolve. She became the first disabled participant in Jackie Gerstung, a former Texas beauty queen, travelled to the pageant Miss USA history. And then, improbably, she won the Miss Iowa title. from Nazareth in Pennsylvania, with her 20-year-old daughter, Victoria, who When she was named the winner, her knees gave way, and she had to be has cerebral palsy and had seen Curran on a talk show and declared, supported so that she wouldn’t collapse. ‘I didn’t believe it all,’ she says. ‘I have to do this!’ Gerstung, who had competed in Miss Houston and Miss She burst into tears as they placed the crown on her head. ‘I’m really an Texas, says of her daughter, ‘She never lets anything step in her way.’ ugly crier,’ she observes. Critics may think those who compete for tiaras are superficial but, in the Still, it wasn’t just about being a beauty queen. She wanted to do more low-slung brick building where the pageant takes place, an escape into for girls like her. At 16, she started the non-profit Miss You Can Do It girly-girly land is a welcome relief for those who find getting out of bed Pageant. She’d had so much fun competing in pageants that she wanted a Herculean struggle and being stared at a fact of daily life. young women with special needs to have that experience, too. On stage, For Victoria, Gerstung believes, the pageant is a chance for people to dressed up and competing for a tiara, Curran found that her disability had see the person, not the disability. Her daughter’s attitude, she says, is: faded away. She wasn’t that girl with cerebral palsy any more. She was ‘I want people to know I’m beautiful, instead of just focusing on my chair.’ a young woman everybody wanted to be like. That’s what she wanted for Backstage, the dressing room is packed with girls getting into gowns, other disabled girls: that moment of freedom in the spotlight. mothers fixing up ‘dos and friends chattering. Victoria, who is sporting a high Last summer, a documentary about the pageant’s 10th anniversary was ponytail and wearing a cheerleader outfit, has a tray of eye shadow in her broadcasted on HBO in the US. Since it aired, Curran has received more lap. She has come prepared with tips on style and working a crowd from than 10 000 e-mails telling her that she’s an inspiration. her mother, who waits in another room and seems more nervous than her The Miss You Can Do It Pageant isn’t about girls being crowned the daughter. Victoria’s goal is ‘just to have fun. It’s a good experience. Being prettiest. They all go home with a crown, a trophy, a sash and a gift box. ‘It’s with these kids means the world to me,’ she says. ‘Because they’re disabled. not about turning your whole self into this fake little doll,’ Curran says. And I’m disabled.’ ‘It’s about showing the girls that they can do anything that they want to do. Pete Santee, who works at a casino in Rock Island, Illinois (‘When you And [that] everyone loves you for who you are, and everyone falls, and hit a jackpot, I’m the guy who comes over and pays you’), is back for the everyone has flaws, and everyone is worried about what other people think.’ third time with Shya Hughes, 18, the daughter of a friend, Dina Severtsgaard. For these girls, it’s a chance to be, well, normal. He is gay and Shya is autistic, and when they first met eight years ago they

‘It’s about showing the girls that they can do anything that they want to do’

76


3 1 0 2 D E T I M I L P U O R G A I D E M H P A R G E L E T / R E T T I R S I L L E A I L A E T / N I L S E R B H A N N A S U S © S H P A R G O T O H P

international report mc clicked, he says. ‘Shya recognized a difference. She knew, “Pete’s different, and I’m different”, and we just connected right away, and it’s been a fatherdaughter love story ever since. We’re like the “Will & Grace” of Iowa,’ he adds. ‘Straight mom. Gay best friend. And Shya’s the autistic daughter.’ The pageant is the highlight of Shya’s year. Her strategy, she tells me, is to ‘do the best I can, act beautiful and show a little sassy’. She snaps her fingers in the air to emphasize her point. ‘It’s Marilyn Monroe,’ she says, referring to her white dress. I ask her what’s most beautiful about her. ‘My big heart is showing the people how beautiful I am,’ she says. Ali Shanks, who is eight, has spina bifida and uses a wheelchair.This is her second time competing. ‘I’m special,’ she tells me. ‘I’m special and it’s

‘My big heart is showing the people how beautiful I am’

�� good.’ At her school there was only one other girl who used a wheelchair. ‘But here,’ she says, scanning the clusters of girls, some in wheelchairs, some with walkers, some with mental disabilities, ‘it’s almost everybody.’ For one night, Ali appears to have forgotten her disability and day-to-day reality and is lit up from the thrill. When Jackie Gerstung learnt that Victoria had cerebral palsy, she says that she ‘felt like I just landed in a foreign country and didn’t know the language’. Ali’s mother, Peggy, learnt of her daughter’s condition in an ultrasound at 19 weeks. ‘We didn’t even know what it was, so we were very scared.’

It’s a challenge, she says, brimming with tears, ‘but it’s been a joy. I mean, she’s the best thing that’s ever happened to us.’ According to Peggy, Curran has inspired Ali with her can-do attitude ever since they met at a rehabilitation centre in Evansville, her and Ali’s hometown in Indiana.‘The first thing that Ali says is,“Mom, she walks like me, and she wears heels.” Ali loves high heels. She saw someone else who walks differently who wore high heels, and that was it.’ wo young women, one dressed as Snow White and the other as Cinderella, enter to coos from the small girls who flock around them. The auditorium is packed with several hundred spectators: family, friends and fans. The show’s MC is Jenni Pulos, the star of Flipping Out , a reality television show in which she is the assistant to a flamboyant Los Angeles interior designer, Jeff Lewis. She stands behind a podium decorated with Hollywood stars. The contest begins with casualwear. One by one, the 40-odd candidates venture out onto the stage. The youngest girls are escorted by Snow White or Cinderella, the older girls by men in black tie. Everyone is applauded. Pulos shouts affirmations from the sidelines: ‘That’s my girl!’‘She is shining!’‘Watch out, Naomi Campbell!’ The girls do the pageant wave, the stage strut, the catwalk turn. Shya stops in front of the judges, twirls and waves like the Queen. ‘Yes, spin it, girl, and show it!’ Pulos hollers. Victoria rockets across the stage in her chair, waving a pom-pom. A quick change, and the eveningwear competition begins. Pulos asks every participant the same question: ‘If you could have any dream come true, what would it be?’ One girl wants to be an actress. One girl longs to own a goat farm. One girl wishes for ‘everyone not to make fun of me’. Another expresses a desire to get rid of her ‘stupid walker’. Victoria, who has switched into a silver dress with a shimmering bodice and chiffon skirt, intends to attend college, ‘like all my other friends’. For those girls who are unable to communicate, Pulos reads their pre-written answers from index cards, the girls standing beside her gazing out at the crowd. For the crowning, the girls return to the stage, grouped by age. Trophies are awarded for being photogenic, for best casualwear, for the on-stage question. Some girls collect a slew of trophies. Ali is named fourth runnerup in the Little Miss category. Awed, she places a black-gloved hand over her mouth. She waves dramatically at the audience. Her trophy is almost as tall as she is in her wheelchair. Finally, the older girls take the stage. Victoria wins Best Personal Interview, Best On-stage Question, and the People’s Choice award. Eventually, there are two left: Victoria and Natasha Nimrick, a cheery 17-year-old from Kewanee who has cerebral palsy, suffers seizures and is hearing impaired. Nimrick is a veteran: this is her 10th try. She wins. Backstage, the girls pose for photographs. I ask Nimrick what Curran means to her. ‘She means the world to me, because of how she tells me, “You can do it, no matter what,”’ she says with a grin.‘She said,“Never give up,” and I never give up.’ In the lobby, I find Victoria clutching a bouquet of red roses, five trophies lined up in front of her, with her mother on one side and her father on the other. How does it feel to be a beauty queen, I ask. ‘Awesome,’ she says. At the after-party, the girls dance to live music, one twirling in her wheelchair. I find Shya. ‘I didn’t win the crown,’ she says, resigned, ‘but at least I made new friends.’ At the bar, I talk to Curran’s mother, Katie, who describes herself as ‘not a pageant person at all’. I ask what drives her daughter. ‘I raised her like I would any other child,’ she says as the party continues into the night.

t

marieclaire.co.za

77

Don’t WORDS ANNA HARTFORD

TELL ME TO

shut up!

78


gender report mc

THERE ARE STILL MANY SPHERES IN WHICH WOMEN ARE PREFERRED TO BE SEEN AND NOT HEARD. FORTUNATELY, A FEW OF US REFUSE TO TAKE A HINT…

‘n

o need to get so hysterical, dear, we’re just talking.’ If you’re a woman who musters even an occasional opinion, you’re probably already amply familiar with this sentence. It’s one of the many scripted responses to women – regardless of what they’re saying or how they’re saying it – who take a place in the cultural conversation outside of the designated, and often denigrated, women’s zones (ladies’ magazines, women’s interest blogs, chick flicks). The retort relies on one of the favourite stereotypes about the sexes: while men debate calmly and listen to the value in what’s being said, women spiral away in manic vortexes, the algebra of reason lost in a haze of oestrogen. Perhaps it’s best for everyone if they just pipe down, or talk amongst themselves about their sex lives, high heels and hot flushes. For eons there has been something distinctly uncelebrated about a woman speaking her mind, and despite our many progressive strides, traces of this view hold firm. (What is she yapping about? Is she single or ugly or something?) Once this was just an attitude in the ether, but the internet has transcribed some of this animosity and made it concrete and quantifiable. In 2006, researchers at the University of Maryland found that feminine usernames received 25 times as many sexually explicit or malicious messages than accounts with masculine usernames. It’s this barbed, sexist online environment that saw fit to attack Caroline Criado-Perez with thousands of brutal rape and death threats, all because of her innocuous efforts to have Jane Austen appear on an English bank note. Or that was the excuse, at any rate: it’s hard to believe that passions over the visage on some currency could provoke anyone to utter:‘I will pistol whip you over and over until you lose consciousness then burn ur flesh’ [sic], ‘the police will do nothing; rape her nice ass; could I help with that lol; the things I cud do to u; dumb blond bitch’ [sic], or ‘I’d do a lot worse than rape you. I’ve just got out of prison and would happily do more time to

Feminine usernames received

25

times as many

sexually explicit or malicious messages than accounts with masculine usernames

see you berried; seriously go kill yourself!’ [sic] (Two of CriadoPerez’s many attackers, Isabella Sorley and John Nimmo, recently received jail sentences for their abusive messages. That at least some of her attackers were women shouldn’t necessarily come as a surprise: judgement and hostility among women, directed to each other primarily because they are women, is a powerful form of contemporary misogyny.) ‘The vitriol isn’t about what women say, it’s about the fact that we are women saying it,’ explains Sisonke Msimang, a gender activist and a columnist at the Daily Maverick .‘That’s what irks the public arena. When a woman argues a point strongly she is called “hysterical” or accused of being “strident” or “emotional”.’ For Msimang, it’s no reason to avoid engagement.‘My response to this has been to keep on writing in the way I want to write,’ she says. But not everyone has the temperament to tolerate the harassment and backlash. Pew Research found an 11 per cent drop in online discussion

‘I don’t walk into a situation wanting to disrespect anyone, so if people are offended, then they’re offended by the values contained within the content of what I’m saying. AND IF YOU’RE

LEBO MASHILE Poet and performer

@lebomashile

OFFENDED BY MY VALUES,

WELL THEN F–CK IT! You’re supposed to be! I don’t want misogynists to like me, I DON’T WANT PEOPLE WHO HATE BLACK PEOPLE TO LIKE ME, I don’t want people who are fronting to like me. It’s taken me a long time, but I’m learning to embrace it, and to realize, also, that a negative reaction can also be a positive measure of your impact.’ marieclaire.co.za

79

‘For me, FEMINISM HAS ALWAYS BEEN AN ENABLER rather than something that has made me feel restricted. I’m also not shy to correct anyone who assumes that they know what I’m about just because I’M A FEMINIST. But, I did have an experience where a man sat down opposite me while I was wearing my “this is what a feminist looks like” T-shirt and said ‘You’re a feminist, hey?’ and I nodded. He responded, ‘I SUPPOSE IT’S BETTER THAN BEING A RACIST.’

So there are times where I think – Oh my gosh, where do I even start?’

JEN THORPE Creator of FeministsSA

@Jen_Thorpe

‘I find myself sort of consciously GIRDING MY LOINS FOR BATTLE, so to speak, when I get ready to publish a piece

TAKING ON SEXISM OR PATRIARCHY IN SOME FORM.

And, of course, its manifestations are so prevalent, and there’s so much to be written, that sometimes I simply can’t face the thought of the hostility. Then I wait and hope someone else will write something else first, before I grit my teeth and dive in.’

REBECCA DAVIS Columnist

@becsplanb

80


groups and chatrooms from 2000 to 2005, fully attributed to the fall in women’s participation. And that’s just on informal online forums: women are notoriously under represented on almost every public platform – politics, news, commentary, and even TV shows. It’s simpler, almost every time, to retreat from an inhospitable environment than to put up a fight to change it. ‘Many quickly learn to shut up,’ says researcher and feminist Nomboniso Gasa. ‘It’s easier and safer that way. I don’t blame them.’ Gasa has spent her career avoiding the safe route (encouraging debate on thorny issues like male initiation, gender-based violence and identity constructions), and has recently taken to the Twittersphere where she has become renowned for her serene and fearless takedowns. ‘I would prefer to be silent and have no need to argue or push boundaries,’ she says. ‘I do it because it has to be done.’ Other women view their belligerence as less of a duty, and more of an inevitability. ‘I am myself in spite of myself. I couldn’t not be this person,’ laughed poet and TV personality Lebo Mashile. ‘As I get older, I just make peace with it.’ It’s a peace that has been encouraged by the acknowledgement that change, even of the positive kind, is inevitably met with resistance. ‘I’m pan African, I’m feminist, I believe in human rights, I believe gay people should be able to love who they want to as they want to,’ she says.‘In a white supremacist, homophobic, misogynistic society, being this kind of a human being is not going to be met with positive reactions by everybody, and I’ve learnt not to expect it.’ The negative reactions Mashile receives have become predictable to her. ‘People always come with the same dumb stuff,’ she says. ‘It’s not as intense as it is in the US. I’ve never had death threats or physical threats, but there’s an insidious subtle violence that does happen. The desire to silence me: so I get told to shut up, or I get told how fat I am, or I get told how much of a foreigner I am, I get told how lousy my work is, I get told how I’m not married, I don’t have a man, where’s my son’s father?’ Aside from accusations of hysteria, attacking a woman’s appearance and relationship status are favourite retorts to women who publicly voice their perspectives. After criticizing Chris Brown, Daily Maverick senior journalist Rebecca Davis was called an ‘ugly hoe’ by a Breezy fan. ‘That’s me,’ Davis later

Pew Research found an

11%

drop in online discussion groups and chatrooms from 2000 to 2005, fully attributed to the fall in women’s participation

gender report mc

D E I L P P U S D N A S E G A M I Y T T E G / S E G A M I O L L A G S H P A R G O T O H P

joked. ‘Not a looker, but indispensable for harvesting root crops.’ ‘I find that whenever you tackle the issue of sexism, in whatever context, you can depend upon a certain degree of negative response, and that some of it will be personal: comments about your appearance or sexuality, in my experience,’ she explained. But the response Davis finds the most frustrating is the recurring insistence that calling out sexism where she sees it amounts to censorship. ‘Time and time again I am told that I have to accept offensive and demeaning treatment of women in the South African public space because to object is to place unacceptable constraints on freedom of expression,’ she says. ‘The very same people who claim to uphold freedom of speech as the highest value of all seem to find no contradiction in trying to use that value to silence feminists who voice objections to sexism.’ Then, if your subject happens to concern women’s interests, there’s also a good chance you’ll be accused of overreacting, or harping on. ‘There are always the really stock-standard boring chauvinist types that go along the lines of “Who are you to be writing about this in the first place?”, which you learn to expect,’ says Jen Thorpe, the creator of the FeministsSA website. ‘But I think the most frustrating and painful ones are those that discuss violence against women as though it is

‘Speaking out, sharing ideas, making government work better, making your employees treat you better – none of these things happen without SPEAKING

UP AND SPEAKING OUT.

SISONKE MSIMANG

Columnist and gender activist

@Sisonkemsimang

It’s not about being loud, it’s about being consistent, and demonstrating that you have a stake in a conversation, that you aren’t just in it to show off, you’re in it because it matters. It makes the conversation a better one for us to be part of it. BEING OUTSPOKEN IS MORE IMPORTANT – everywhere in the world – than it has ever been.’

‘I am patient, kind of, because conversation is important. Also, I AM CURIOUS BY NATURE. So, I’d rather

travel longer with a person and perhaps we might just teach one another a thing or two. NOMBONISO GASA I am really stubborn, but I do Researcher and not have the need to be right. commentator I am evolving and learning all @nombonisogasa the time. If someone comes along to help and correct me, I do not get embarrassed. Oh sure, I am always in constant arguments with myself. THINGS ARE

NOT AS SIMPLE AS WE MAKE THEM TO BE. So, I live with my contradictions in private and in public.’

not really as big a problem as I make it out to be. These are so awful in a context where for many South African women violence is a dayto-day reality.’ Thorpe created FeministsSA to provide a receptive space for South African women’s voices.‘I do think that the anticipation of a negative reaction can discourage women from speaking about issues that concern them. I think that women are best placed to tell us what concerns them, and that it’s really sad that they might avoid opportunities to do so.’ Of course, women are entirely capable of holding legitimately flawed or problematic opinions, and benefit as much as anyone from sincere engagement with what they have to say. It should not be a privilege, however, to be addressed on the content of your views, rather than being dismissed for your gender, in the various noxious forms this dismissal takes: she’s not good-looking enough, she’s too good-looking, she’s frigid, she’s a slut, she’s too emotional, she’s in the wrong kind of relationship, she’s just bitter, she’s overreacting. ‘Somehow there is still this tendency to expect us to speak “in whispers” if we must say anything at all,’ says Gasa. ‘We are called angry women, frustrated women, women who have lost contact with their identity. I take it all on the chin and go: “As I was saying...”’ marieclaire.co.za

81

NATASHA, 35, WHO ALSO MOVED TO THE US FROM GUINEA, HAD THE FIRST ORGASM OF HER LIFE THREE MONTHS AFTER HER 2010 SURGERY WITH BOWERS, USING

THE VIBRATOR GARY GAVE HER. ‘I’D NEVER FELT ANYTHING LIKE IT BEFORE; THESE WAVES OF EXCITEMENT CAME OVER ME AND I LOST CONTROL.’

SHE NOW HAS REGULAR ORGASMS AND, IN CASE DOUBTERS THINK THEY’RE IMAGINED IN AN EAGERNESS TO BE CONVINCED THE SURGERY WORKED, SHE POINTS OUT THAT SHE CLIMAXES IN HER

RESTORED CLITORIS DESPITE WHAT’S IN HER HEAD, NOT BECAUSE OF IT. // A

WOMAN’S BODY IS CONNECTED TO HER SELF-ESTEEM – WE EXPLAIN TO PATIENTS WHAT HAPPENS WHEN A WOMAN FEELS PLEASURE AND THAT IT’S NATURAL. SEX WITH MY HUSBAND IS FUN NOW; IT WAS JUST A DUTY BEFORE. I HAVEN’T REACHED

Undoing female

GENITAL

mutilation

social report mc IMAGINE NEVER HAVING BEEN ABLE TO ENJOY INTERCOURSE. A CONTROVERSIAL SURGICAL PROCEDURE AIMS TO GIVE VICTIMS OF FEMALE GENITAL MUTILATION THE ABILITY TO EXPERIENCE SEXUAL SENSATION WORDS JOANNA WALTERS

a

nondescript suburb on the outskirts of San Francisco. A plain brick building. Seven nervous women wait in the sunlight. They are here for surgery, which perhaps has as much claim as any other to describe itself as ‘miraculous’. The little building doesn’t shout its purpose, for many reasons. Firstly, this surgery is about female sexuality. Secondly, it is contrary to the beliefs and traditions of millions of families worldwide – brutal beliefs and traditions. And then there’s the surrealism of the pair behind the procedure: the tall, blonde female surgeon – one of the best in the US – who happens to have been born male, and the cheerful French counsellor who follows the bizarre 1970s Raëlian sect that believes humans were created by extraterrestrials for the purpose of unalloyed joy. Soon afterwards, one of the first patients, Zaria, 24, is under anaesthetic. ‘This one’s pretty bad,’ says the surgeon, glancing at me from the stool where she sits between the legs of her patients, scalpel poised. When I’d met Zaria, just before her operation, I was struck by the energy of this funny, feisty and beautiful medical student with a tattoo and bundles of raven hair. Now, by her invitation, I am looking at her genitals over the surgeon’s shoulder and trying not to cry. Zaria looks more like a doll than a real woman. Her genitals are featureless, completely smooth apart from the opening. Barbie might actually be more anatomically correct. The surgeon lifts her scalpel and begins slicing away at the flat skin surface; a thick layer of scar tissue. It is the second time in Zaria’s life that someone has taken a knife to her most intimate parts. The first was at age 11 in Sierra Leone, and that time there was no anaesthetic. Relatives had taken her to the countryside ‘to pick oranges’. Once there, she was lined up with 20 other girls and forced to the ground by a cluster of older women. Her labia and clitoris were sliced off in a ritual once called female circumcision but now known more accurately as Female Genital Mutilation (FGM). ‘I remember I struggled and was yelling so loudly that one of the women actually sat on my head and practically suffocated me while they cut me,’ Zaria told her fellow FGM victims as they shared stories before their operations. According to the World Health Organization (WHO) more than 140 million women worldwide live with the effects of FGM, most commonly practised in northeast and West Africa, but also in places such as Yemen and Indonesia. But an infinitesimal fraction, almost exclusively those who emigrated to the west, are now finding their way to an emerging handful of surgeons who offer a radical attempt at rehabilitation. This surgery doesn’t just make intercourse and childbirth easier. Controversially, it also aims to give the women the capacity to feel sexual pleasure – most for the very first time – by rehabilitating the clitoris. Zaria has travelled to California from her home on the east coast of the US, where she moved from West Africa as a teenager. The wounds from Zaria’s cuts healed long ago, but in the process formed a layer of thick scar tissue that left her genitals numb to the touch. ‘My fiancé left me two months ago because I don’t want sex,’ she’d told me when she first arrived at the clinic, her sad and bewildered tone mixed with a note of defiance. ‘I did start having sex with him, but

I don’t feel anything and I don’t care for it. He’s from Sierra Leone too, so he understands about FGM and was supportive at first, but in the end he went off with another African girl who hadn’t gone through it and wasn’t inhibited like me,’ she had said. While some of Zaria’s relatives dealt with her heartbreak by telling her to just ‘get on with it’ and have sex out of obedience, Zaria had what she describes as a ‘lightbulb moment’ and began searching the internet and came across an alternative solution. Next thing, she had taken out a loan, which she has ‘no idea’ how she’ll pay back, jumped on a plane and found herself in this plain brick building. At the clinic, she and the other patients (including one from Australia, who had been ‘cut’ when living in Kenya as a young girl and who had hugged Zaria as she first told her story) were greeted by the two women who were instrumental in encouraging them to break their bonds of cultural taboo. They are an intriguing pair. One is the surgeon, Dr Marci Bowers, who specializes in sex-change surgery and was born male before she transitioned. There’s a 14-month waiting list for her $21 000 (over R210 000) gender-reassignment surgery, but twice a year she clears her diary to operate pro bono on FGM victims – although they must pay a $1 700 (over R17 000) fee to the clinic, near San Francisco airport, where Bowers rents an operating theatre. So far she’s operated on 50 women. The other is Nadine Gary, a Frenchwoman who lives in Las Vegas. A schoolteacher, she was inspired to help FGM victims by her following of the Raëlian sect. Founded by Claude Vorilhon (‘Raël’), who spouts absurd claims about being taken up in an alien spaceship to meet Moses, Jesus and Buddha, it professes that humans and all living things on earth were created by extraterrestrials using genetic engineering. Followers strive to campaign

Two friends – Emma and Ayanna – relax during Ayanna’s recovery period. marieclaire.co.za

83

for world peace, sharing and nonviolence, but also unfettered sexual joy, which drives their movement against FGM. They were recently in the news for offending people with their use of the swastika, often set inside the Star of David. When I meet her, Gary is wearing this scandalous combination on a gold necklace and, noting my alarm, explains why it symbolizes infinity for Raëlians and employs the swastika in the ancient eastern sense of sacred goodness ‘before Hitler hijacked it’. I waver between dismay and bemusement. She comes across as a paradox: a dynamic, charming, kind and generous person in all our conversations who, until she starts talking about UFOs, seems rational. I listen politely, then turn back to the practical and political implications of the charity she helps run, provocatively called Clitoraid. Formed by the Raëlians, it campaigns for the end of FGM and, meanwhile, promotes the surgery to victims and offers free long-term emotional and sexual counselling. Gary has driven from Vegas to support the women, many of whom have not told their families about their journey. The atmosphere in the clinic is strained, with much nervous laughter. On the operating table, however, everything is clinically methodical. After stripping off old scar tissue, Bowers makes deeper incisions to disconnect small ligaments around the area where Zaria’s clitoris was before it was removed. At the stroke of the scalpel, a prominent nub of raw pink flesh practically pops up, suddenly protruding from the tissue surrounding it. ‘There! That’s her womanhood right there,’ Bowers declares triumphantly. ‘It’s like a magnificent tower in the forest.’ When the clitoris is cut off in FGM, Bowers explains, it’s like losing just the visible ‘tip of the iceberg’. ‘Even after they cut off the tip, about 99 per cent of the clitoris is actually still intact, but hidden beneath the surface. We can access that.’ Apparently women possess another eight inches of unseen clitoral erectile tissue that lies under the skin, arching around the vagina. ‘Two inches longer than the average penis,’ says Bowers archly. By removing the obstructive and often painful scarring and exposing some of that remaining erectile tissue, then stitching it finely into place, she asserts that after about two months of healing it can function as a new clitoris, restoring the potential for pleasurable sex. After that procedure, known as clitoroplasty, Bowers stitches side folds of spare skin near the vagina to give Zaria the token appearance of labia minora. It can never be her natural perfection, Bowers warns, but even to my non-medical eye, I can see that this travesty, this sub-Barbie, has been transformed into a fair simulacrum of what Zaria was born with. Luckily, she hasn’t suffered the infibulation ritual that stitches the vagina partially shut. After 55 minutes she is wheeled out of surgery and the next patient, Sara, 29, is wheeled in. Sara was cut in Eritrea, East Africa, at just three months old and it was more a symbolic slash than a mutilation. But, the manner in which her scar tissue formed fused a section of the labia, restricting the vagina and clitoris. Now living on the west coast of America, Sara suffers pain, not only if her boyfriend attempts to touch her there, but even when doing exercise. In just 12 minutes of delicate scalpel work, Bowers removes a lifetime of discomfort for Sara. Between sessions, Bowers checks her e-mails, gulps a coffee and chats with the nurses in an anteroom. She’s exasperated that more surgeons aren’t training and research hospitals aren’t adopting this operation. Compared with the delicate gynaecological, urological and plastic surgery she uses for five-hour gender-reassignment operations, FGM restorations are a doddle.‘Clitoroplasty isn’t rocket science. If I wanted to be

84


controversial I’d say that the three reasons why more surgeons don’t train for it are that these patients are African, Islamic and female. There’s a cultural bias or indifference there, combined with good old racism and sexism in a traditionally paternalistic medical profession. There may be some legitimate fear about interfering with other people’s cultures, but when you talk to the husbands and boyfriends of the women they’re not happy that their wives and girlfriends cannot respond sexually – and that’s even without going into the misery that the women suffer,’ says Bowers.

t

here is, as you might imagine, disagreement in the medical world about the effectiveness of the surgery. The pioneer of FGM-repair surgery is Dr Pierre Foldès in Paris, who began offering clitoroplasty two decades

ago and has operated on almost 3 000 women. He trained Bowers, 10 surgeons in France, one in Barcelona and another doctor who offers the surgery in New York.(The reason, incidentally,why there are so many French trainees is that clitoroplasty is paid for by the state as corrective surgery, not only to increase the chance of sexual pleasure, or reduce the chance of sexual pain but, crucially,to make women feel normal again; the French see this as a human right.) Just one surgeon in Britain, Dr Kamal Iskander,based at Northwick Park Hospital in Middlesex, is known to perform the occasional clitoroplasty on a patient but, he explains, only if he’s already operating on them for more extensive post-FGM problems, such as chronic pain or infibulation. There are an estimated quarter of a million women in the US who have suffered FGM or are at risk of it. In Britain, there are an estimated 66 000 victims, largely among the African diaspora, and a further 20 000 of their children are believed to be at risk, mostly of being taken abroad for the ritual, even though this is illegal. An article in The Lancet by Foldès in June 2012 stated that of those who attended a one-year surgical follow-up consultation (admittedly only 29 per cent of his patients), more than half were now having orgasms and almost 98 per cent felt clitoral pleasure. But leading British doctors Sarah Creighton, consultant gynaecologist at the private Portland Hospital, Susan Bewley, consultant obstetrician at St Thomas’, and Lih-Mei Liao, clinical psychologist in women’s health

social report mc

Left Dr Marci Bowers is on a mission to put pleasure back into women’s women’s lives. Opposite Facing the future: Sara awaits surgery while Zaria recovers.

S O T O H P K C O T S K N I H T / S E G A M I O L L A G D N A N O S N H O J A N N O D N O I T A R T S U L L I D T L A I D E M & S W E N N A I D R A U G / S I R R A H I M O A N © S H P A R G O T O H P

‘Sex with my husband husband is fun now; it was just a duty before. I haven’t haven’t reached the orgasm part yet, but I’m working on it’

at University College London Hospital, wrote to the journal countering that his clitoralrestoration claims were ‘anatomically impossible’ – his results were not ‘supported by current evidence’ and ‘where the body of the clitoris has been removed, the neurovascular bundle cannot be preserved’. Bowers described the letter as ‘sneering’, citing patients who ring her up crying with happiness after their firstever orgasm. Efua Dorkenoo, who leads the campaign against FGM at the women’s anti-violence pressure group Equality Now in London, called on the WHO to initiate clinical trials on the surgery – the lack of information meant she could not dismiss either side’s arguments. Bowers tells FGM patients that ‘there are no guarantees’ but that eight out of 10 report improvements in their sex life after surgery, ranging from eliminating pain and acquiring some pleasure to full-on orgasm. Gary organizes a pre-surgery workshop about the mental transition needed from lingering trauma to embracing sensuality and sends them all home with a vibrator. Once healed, she sends them literature on discovering masturbation. ‘The physical surgery is just one step of the journey. Many religions repress women’s sexuality – we break the taboo. A woman’s body is connected to her self-esteem – we explain to patients what happens when a woman feels pleasure and that it’s natural,’ Gary says. Miriama, 30, who was born in Guinea but now lives in the US, had the surgery with Bowers three years ago and says it has changed her marriage. ‘Sex with my husband is fun now; it was just a duty before. I haven’t reached the orgasm part yet, but I’m working on it.’ Travelling to Bowers’s clinic was a huge step.‘When I told a cousin what wh at I was getting done she called me a slut,’ Miriama recalls. She has

a daughter daugh ter who is eight, eight , but Miriama Miria ma refuses to take her to visit vis it her mother, who still lives in Africa. She has never met her granddaughter, in case the child is taken to be cut, as Miriama’s mother did to her. Natasha, 35, who also moved to the US from Guinea, had the first orgasm of her life three months after her 2010 surgery with Bowers, using the vibrator Gary gave her.‘I’d never felt anything anythin g like it before.’ She now has regular reg ular orgasms orga sms and, and , in case doubters think they’re they’re imagined in an eagerness to be convinced the surgery worked, she points out that she climaxes in her restored clitoris despite what’s in her head, not because of it. ‘I was surprised I actually felt ashamed I was doing something selfish and dirty.’ The social conditioning of her upbringing is hard to shake. Her husband is making efforts to reassure her, she said, and she turns to Gary for support. ‘I can talk to Nadine freely. She feels like a big sister.’ Natasha and the other women say Gary talks of the Raëlian philosophy of sexual freedom, but denies the treatment has been used to convert them to the outlandish religion. When I question Gary on her beliefs, she explains that the aliens who w ho created humans are called Elohim , Hebrew for God or gods but, to the Raëlians, means ‘those who came from the sky’. ‘The Bible is essentially an atheist book,’ she tells me earnestly. ‘There is no God.’ Gary says this set of beliefs seemed more ‘mature’ to her when she converted at 17 from the Catholicism she grew up with near Lyon. She is now, she adds, a Raëlian priestess. I turn to Bowers, who shrugs. ‘The Raëlians are unabashed about their sexuality and unapologetic about erotic pleasure, but it’s a red herring in terms of my work. It doesn’t affect the price of bread,’ bread,’ she says,‘but they do deserve deser ve credit for promoting women’s sexual health and Nadine has got me talking more frankly about sexual matters with my patients. p atients.’’ The day after her surgery in San Mateo, Sara is tired but ecstatic. Most of the women recover in cheap hotels near the clinic, but Sara is collected by her boyfriend. ‘I feel free. I’d felt so unheard and my whole life had felt like there was something missing. Now the anger I’ve had for years has gone,’ she says. Her boyfriend Jack, who was born in Eritrea, puts up with the fact that they’ve been together for three years but don’t have sex. ‘I’m not going to rush. I love her and she is my good match,’ he says, smiling shyly. ‘I’m very glad she’s had surgery – it’s necessary for her to feel like a full woman.’ Another of the women Bowers has just operated on, Ayanna, 23, a marketing assistant from the Pacific Northwest who fled the civil war in Somalia, is in a quandary quandar y after her clitoroplasty, clitoro plasty, for she isn’t in love with her current boyfriend. boyf riend.‘I told him I was coming for the surgery… s urgery… I’m worried wor ried he’s going to expect me to be an instant sex machine,’ she says. Ayanna lied to her conservative mother that she was visiting friends in San Francisco, then then snuck off to Bowers’s clinic with her best friend Emma for support. Emma’s parents are from Ethiopia, but she was born in America and was never cut. The two exude such an all-American youthful mischief it’s hard to believe Ayanna was once steeped in a very different different tradition. They banter about parties and dating.They order room service while giggling in their dressing gowns. But then she is suddenly solemn. ‘My friends and I will all be in a nightclub having a crazy time, but while they are getting guys’ numbers, I hang back,’ she says. ‘Technically there’s no reason why, just because I’m cut down there, I couldn’t feel sexy when a guy is kissing me or touching my breasts. But my mind leaps to what that leads to next and then I shut down,’ she says. She has high hopes of a fulfilling sex life now that she’s had surgery, but still has years of negative mind games to overcome. Some names have been changed. marieclaire.co.za

85

…quit the legal profession profession LINDA GIESKES, 26 LEGAL CONSULTANT

‘I love the theory of law and how it informs the ideas I have of making a difference, but I’d love to develop a product line to help women of colour feel beautiful and give them confidence to grow their hair h air naturally. na turally.’

…join the circus KYLA KIN, 24 PRE-SCHOOL TEACHER

‘Literally. I have always been fascinated by the performers in circuses like Madame Zingara or Cirque du Soleil – the lights, the details in the costumes, the make-up, the atmosphere and the beauty of the performers all add to my obsession. But because it’s a world filled with unknowns for me, I haven’t yet found it in me to give up a career and family I love to follow that th at uncertainty.’

…write children’s books KAVITA RAMJEE, 22 HR CONSULTANT

‘I have the beginnings of a children’s book in my head that I keep meaning to finish. I’d love to move to a cottage by the sea and finish it and then send it to a publisher and see what they think.’

86


I I wasn’t I would...

NO FEARS? NO DOUBTS? WE ASKED EIGHT WOMEN WHAT THEY WOULD DO IF THEY IGNORED THEIR INSECURITIES INSECURITIES COMPILED BY SARAH BY SARAH KOOPMAN

…volunteer in Africa TIISETSO MNGOMEZULU, 26 CHARTERED ACCOUNTANT

‘I have just returned from a two-week volunteer trip in Rwanda that really touched me and makes me want to do more work like that in the rest of the continent. I would love to spend a year volunteering in another African country. There is so much to do and see, but I’m still too attached to the comforts of home to take the plunge.’

vox vox pop po p mc

…use all my savings to travel the world VALENTINE GAUDIN, 31 BRAND MANAGER

E E G C M N I T S U J S H P A G R N G U O F T Y O L L H E P K N G A N I M L P Y O T O S K Y H B A R R E L A L S I K D E N A M O S L N A Y H E S H A P N U A E J K A N O I M T D C N U A D R I O R A P H

…rely less on my liquid personality

‘I’ve always been raised to make plans, be secure and keep money aside for rainy days. For once, I would like to be able to blow all the money I’ve put aside to make me happy and see the world.’

JANA HAMMAN, 31 CREATIVE CONSULTANT AND DESIGNER

‘Many people would never guess when they first see or meet me but, despite popular belief, I am actually really shy. I find I need some kind of social lubricant to help me work a room. I would love to be able to do just that without my preferred poison in hand.’

…date my best friend KENEILWE SEBOPA, SE BOPA, 30 PRODUCTION ANALYST

‘One of my closest friends is an amazing guy – smart, funny and always just a call away – and we’ve been close for about five years. He would be the perfect partner, but I am too scared of possibly losing our friendship to even bring up the idea of dating.’

…explore the supernatural SINDI-LEIGH MCBRIDE, 25 RESEARCHER

‘My grandmother always warned against any games that interfere with the spiritual realm that she believed in. If I wasn’t afraid I would follow my curiosity in playing games like glasie-glasie .’

v i is s i i t t o u ur r

s i it t e e

T e l l l l u s w h s h at i f t y o f y o ou w ou w a u u ou o l l d er e u r e n e ' ' t M a r d o d n t a f ri o i e c e cl fr r a i i d a l a i d a t a i r r e e. c o t o. z a a

marieclaire.co.za

87

mc

community

Join the

community THINK smart

look AMAZING JOIN NOW AND GET A

30% DISCOUNT! MC READERS WILL

RECEIVE A 12-MONTH PRINT SUBSCRIPTION FOR ONLY R249, SO YOU SAVE R110!

Every month, Marie Claire is available in digital format to read on your iPad, laptop or computer. It’s the same content and the same design – the only difference is that you get it delivered immediately to your device. Save on the cover price and download the current issue for only R16,80 or order a 12-month digital subscription for just R201. To subscribe, visit

4 REASONS TO JOIN Subscription delivery to your door Special offers, gifs and discounts Never miss an issue Avoid cover-price increases


MARIECLAIRE.CO.ZA/SUBSCRIBE.

It’s so easy to subscribe

1

E-mail MagazineDeliveries@ onthedot.co.za

2

CHOOSE ONE OF THESE THREE SIMPLE OPTIONS: SMS the code ‘OTDMAGSUBS’ followed by ‘MC March’ to 43366. (Standard SMS rates apply.)

3

Call 0861-000-423 and quote ‘MC March’ to subscribe.

*The R249 for 12 print issues and R201 for 12 digital issues offer is valid until 31 March 2014 and while stocks last. Digital subscriptions can only be taken up by following the link on our website. Notice of cancellation of your subscription must be given in writing. The special subscription offer detailed above is applicable to South Africa only. By providing a cellphone number and e-mail address, you’re giving Marie Claire magazine permission to communicate with you via these channels unless you end your correspondence with ‘No’ to opt out. For foreign or neighbouring country subscriptions, call +27-11-401-5956. Allow six to eight weeks for delivery.

88


fashion CUTOUT DRESS WITH APPLIQUÉ AND CAPE, PRICE ON REQUEST, BLACK COFFEE; CHAIN MAIL GLOVES, STYLIST’S OWN; METALLIC NAIL RINGS, R79 EACH, NAILCANDI.

marieclaire.co.za

89

Natural fit

PRODUCTION LOUW KOTZE PHOTOGRAPHS KRISTIN-LEE MOOLMAN

90


TO CREATE CONVERSATION THROUGH FASHION AND AN INNOVATIVE AESTHETIC THAT SHOWCASES THE UNIQUE HISTORY AND FUTURE OF AFRICAN DESIGN, SAMSUNG INTRODUCED SEVEN DESIGNERS TO SEVEN ACCESSORY DESIGNERS FROM THE CONTINENT TO COLLABORATE ON AMAZE AFRICA, AN EXCLUSIVE RANGE WHICH OPENED MERCEDES-BENZ AFRICA FASHION WEEK

PLEATED KAFTAN,

PRICE ON REQUEST, METALLIC

SNAKESKIN COSTUME, PRICE ON REQUEST, BOTH LOIN CLOTH & ASHES; PRINTED CLUTCH BAG, R884, DOREEN MASHIKA.

marieclaire.co.za

91

FEATHERED BODICE DRESS WITH PEPLUM AND SHEER SKIRT,

PRICE ON REQUEST,

BLACK COFFEE; FEATHER HEAD PIECE, R15 000 , ALBERTUS SWANEPOEL; METALLIC NAIL RINGS, R79 EACH, NAILCANDI.

92


SINGLE-SLEEVED DRESS WITH ASYMMETRICAL COLLAR CUTOUTS, R44 400, TAIBO BACAR; ROPE AND-TASSEL CLUTCH, R1 500, PICHULIK.

marieclaire.co.za

93

TOP COAT WITH CONTRAST COLLAR, R13 798 , SHIRT WITH STRIPED DETAIL, R3 520, TROUSERS, R2 534 , ALL LAURENCEAIRLINE; WOVEN LAPTOP BAG, PRICE ON REQUEST, MISSIBABA.

94


WOOL COAT WITH SHAWL COLLAR, R16 896 , SHIRT WITH CONSTRAST BUTTON STAND, R3 520 , TROUSERS, R2 534 , ALL LAURENCEAIRLINE; WOVEN LAPTOP BAG,

PRICE ON REQUEST,

MISSIBABA; PATENTLEATHER SHOES, STYLIST’S OWN.

marieclaire.co.za

95

MARIANNE FASSLER PLASTIC TANK TOP WITH FABRIC APPLIQUÉ, MARIANNE FASSLER PLASTIC SKIRT WITH FABRIC APPLIQUÉ AND MESH DETAIL, R17 000 (SOLD AS A SET) , BOTH

LEOPARD FROCK; METALLIC NAIL RINGS, R79 EACH, NAILCANDI.

96


E U Q I C A D A M A S G N D I S N U A S D N H I G / L L N O R C U E B E T L A H E L C L E R E F H C I I S T N M S N E S I J I L K C R O I A T A N S H S E I U E N S O O L S J L L I O I B C A R T N A A E D V M T D R S O N F N A R E N S L U D F E N D A A C O T N M U A A S G S N A O G E I B L K / B S A B D T M E N A A S T B T S I M N A S A K T S S A E I V S P A S U D A E L S ’ K E R A D E M O H M P C E A A L R M A G G M O T N I T O S N H U E P S M L N E I A L G L L I A R O N A C A H E M L I E L / D H A E S L S E L Y T E A N H H A C I I T N S I M A S P D S U - L A E E N K D O I A O T M M C F E U E I L D A L O K M R Y E P R F

MARIANNE FASSLER PLASTIC COAT WITH FABRIC APPLIQUÉ, MARIANNE FASSLER PLASTIC DRESS WITH MESH OVERLAY AND FABRIC APPLIQUÉ,

R27 000 (SOLD AS A SET), BOTH LEOPARD

FROCK; MARIANNE FASSLER FOR QUAMTA PRINTED ZIP WALLET, R4 648 , QUAMTA; PLATFORM BOOTS, STYLIST’S OWN; METALLIC NAIL RINGS, R79 EACH, NAILCANDI.

marieclaire.co.za

97

CARVEN

WOOL-AND-ALPACA COAT, CARVEN; STUDDED PATENTLEATHER PUMPS, CHRISTIAN LOUBOUTIN.

FF THE

RAIL

IT’S FULL STEAM AHEAD ON THE INTERNATIONAL RUNWAYS WITH LEATHER, CREATIVE SHAPES AND EXCITING TEXTURES. ALL ABOARD!

PRODUCTION AND STYLING SYLVIE HALIC PHOTOGRAPHS STRATIS

98


DOLCE & GABBANA

EMBROIDERED SILK LACE DRESS, UNDERWEAR, BAG, PUMPS, ALL DOLCE & GABBANA.

marieclaire.co.za

99

MIU MIU

WOOL DRESS, TAFFETA UNDERSKIRT, SOCKS, SHOES, SILK SCARF, ALL MIU MIU.

100


ANN DEMEULEMEESTER

WOOL COAT WITH COLLAR, SILK SLEEVES, TROUSERS, LEATHER BUSTIER BELT, ALL ANN DEMEULEMEESTER; LEATHER THIGHHIGH BOOTS, CHRISTIAN LOUBOUTIN.

marieclaire.co.za

101

CHANEL

EMBROIDERED TWEED DRESS, LAMBSKIN STOCKINGS, PATENT-LEATHER SHOES, ALL CHANEL.

102


PRADA

FELTED TOP, KNIT TOP, FELTED SKIRT, LEATHER BELT, SATIN SHOES, ALL PRADA.

RICCARDO TISCI WHITE CUT-BACK TURTLENECK TOP, GIVENCHY; BLACK AND-WHITE STRIPED SKIRT, MARC JACOBS; EARRINGS, MODEL’S OWN.

marieclaire.co.za

103

GUCCI

CRACKLED LEATHER DRESS, GUCCI.

104


E T I L E / A I L A D L E D O M I N A T L A A R T I M I D P U E K A M Y C N E G A T R O P R I A / R E D L A C S S O F N Y T R A M R I A H

PVC SKINPRINT SKIRT, R549, TOPSHOP.

WAISTED TROUSERS, R699, ZARA.

METALLIC COURT HEELS, R4 650, HUGO BOSS.

OXFORD TRENCH COAT, R23 500,

BURBERRY. N I T R A M D A E N I S T N S A T T S S I I S K S C A O N T S O I T E E C S U S D L I O R A T P E D N R Y T O R F E B E L G A N A U E O R L D L N E A X I P N / O I R E T N C E U P D E O W R E P R D G N N A U F S Y H L L P E A K R S G D O R T O O H W P

TOTE BAG, R2 299, ZARA.

SHOP THE SHOOT GET ON TOP OF THIS

SEASON’S MAJOR TRENDS WITH THESE KEY PIECES

BELT, R150,

SECOND TIME AROUND.

SIMONE ROCHA WIDE-LEG TROUSERS, R10 999, STUDIO 8. LEATHERSLEEVE SHIFT DRESS,

SATIN BLAZER, R2 999, GAVIN RAJAH.

R12 450,

BURBERRY.

ANKLE PEEP-TOE HEELS, R799, LUELLA.

� � � � � � � � � � � � � �

NAV DARK BLUE IS THE NEW BLACK. CREATE A LOOK THAT IS INTENSE AND CLASSIC PRODUCTION BEE DIAMONDHEAD PHOTOGRAPHS KOPE|FIGGINS

106


OVERCOAT, R450, SECOND TIME AROUND; LONG SLEEVELESS KNIT, R5 499, TIGER OF SWEDEN; SUPERSLIM SKINNY JEGGINGS, R2 799, DIESEL; THE PHOEBE ENVELOPE CLUTCH, R1 299, THALIA STRATES; POINTY MESH COURT HEELS, R2 350, CASTELO; JEWELLED NECKLACE (WORN AS CHOKER), R380 , JANGI; LARGE NECKLACE, R450, LOVISA; SILVER RINGS, R460 EACH, IRACEMA BOUTIQUE.

fashion mc 2 1

O H U K Y B A X E H

W O R E H T

1

F F O K A R K D E E R

K O O L

R E D N A S L I J

O M A G A R R E F E R O T A V L A S

4

L Ë U O R Z A L A G I Y

Y E N T R A C C M A L L E T S

marieclaire.co.za

107

I N A M R A O I G R O I G


2

A T S I T P A B A R I E V I L O E P I L E F

1

2

K O O L

O N A I L L A G N H O J

E N N A B A R O C A P

4

R E I L R A H C C I R D É C

108



fashion mc MIX-FABRIC JACKET, R1 800, GUESS; BLEULAB REVERSIBLE DENIMS, R3 499, MADISON BOUTIQUE; TOTE BAG, R899 NINE WEST; POINTED COURT HEELS, R989 , TOPSHOP.

1. BOHEMIAN REVOLUTION FISHNET KAFTAN, R240, BABETTE CLOTHING; BUSTIER, R1 200, HIGH-WAISTED BRIEFS, R899, BOTH GAVIN RAJAH. 2. HANKY PANKY BRALETTE, R560 ,

INNER SECRETS LINGERIE. 3. SELMARK LINGERIE WRAP BRA, R575, SELMARK LINGERIE SPANKS, R699, BOTH BARCLAY & CLEGG. 4. DAISIYU BRA, R220, DAISIYU MIDIS, R100, BOTH WOOLWORTHS; THIGHHIGH STOCKINGS, STYLIST’S OWN. 5. TURTLENECK MESH TOP, R395 , KOTTIN & TWILLE; ELLE MACPHERSON BRA, R725, ELLE MACPHERSON BRIEFS, R450, BOTH STUTTAFORDS; KNEE-HIGH STOCKINGS, R35, WOOLWORTHS.

5

marieclaire.co.za

109

BOMBER JACKET, R999, TOPSHOP; FRINGED SHORTS, MADE TO ORDER, CLIVE RUNDLE; STITCHED LEATHER BOOTS, R3 399, NINE WEST.

MAIDENFORM BRA,

R800 , MAIDENFORM

SHAPEWEAR SUIT, R1 000 , BOTH STUTTAFORDS.

110


1 6 N 6 O 3 I G 8 T N 7 C I E H 0 L L S I 6 8 O N 0 R C L U P F L U A - E C E V . I K S T A A R M R E L O I 4 A C 1 T E 0 E D 2 R S R D S R E N T E M A S F F S I M K O U R C S O / S T O C G I A T R R S N I B O E R A E P F C E S S L L D S L I L E T I M S N I A N T A L E A H I E V C C D S E R G S P O N K S F I S N A I R U A V O A H T E T R I L D I U E A B I R I W R R C T Y E E S R F P I T D A S I N R U S T S G O C E L I C S A R E B P L L O A U C - F B A L E L R L K I I U A A O M V Y A M N F E E D V O R N S A S A N L E I R S A O I I T E A T E H H A T D . C R A N O I C O I T L F R R S A A L F A Z . M E H O D D T C O A . U L E M O L I N S I N M S O I N I N T S E E N U V D A F S T / A S Y I M R @ S S Y O L R S E G A D D A I U N R O R O O I R A L T P I M C L A S U E C I M D D R E O B R R O A P M F O

fashion mc 2 1

T T E R R A B L I E N Y R O E H T ’ S N E K S Y E H T

3

I C C I R A N I N

E N O B & G A R

K O O L M E H L A Y O R

O L L E R A C C A V Y N O H T N A


marieclaire.co.za

111

s eThere is something h cso ‘old world’ about oadding a brooch o rto complete an Boutfit. We love that

these last-minute accessories are making a comeback in our wardrobes.

1 2 D E R A U Q S D

A T E N E V A G E T T O B

O R A G N U L E U N A M E

2

2 D E R A U Q S D

s r e h t a e F

N E T O N N A V S E I R D


RULES FOR THE SEASON

I T T E R R E F A T R E B L A

I C C U G

MARIE CLAIRE STYLE GUIDE FOR

Designers like Dries Van Noten, Proenza Schouler and Gucci utilized fine feathers in their collections for a fresh take on garment movement.

112


s l e e h d e l i a t e D

I D N E F

3

Heel detail is everything for winter. Whether embroidered, sculpted or carved, the heel does all the talking when it comes to shoes this season.

A N A B B A G & E C L O D

AUTUMN/

S R E D N U A S N A H T A N O J

N O T T I U V S I U O L

N O T T I U V S I U O L

fashion

s k c e n d e t a g n o l E

4


5

N O D N O L Y E L R E P M E T

season. Belt in your coats, knee-length skirts and men’s cut trousers for a cinched-in waist!

WINTER �0��

R O I D

6

L E I K Y R A I N O S

Plain black is just not going to cut it this season. Brighten up with a sharply cut, statement coat in a delicious sorbetpastel shade – an instant pick-me-up for those cold, grey days.

d e t a o c y d n a C

N O S M A I L L I W W E H T T A M

We love the instant elegance of a lengthened neckline. Wear your turtleneck under a coat for the perfect balance between androgynous cool and subtle minimalism.



L E I K Y R A I N O S

t i The waist belt – an h of the old c extension Hollywood n trend – is aglamour i key C accessory to have this

mc

s g n i r r a e r e i l e d n a h C

7

Following the hoop and cuff trends of summer, ear accessories this season are taken one step further with dramatic and statement chandelier earrings that cascade down the neck and reflect light from all angles. A N A B B A G & E C L O D

marieclaire.co.za

000

8

R E I T L U A G L U A P N A E J

G N A W R E D N A X E L A

Slouchy and cosy, big jerseys are a key piece this season to be worn over everything and anything.

114


k n u p u a e v u o N

For one of the season’s major trends, designers went rebellious and found inspiration from the Sid and Nancy era. Studs, tartan, leather and chains were seen everywhere from Chanel to Givenchy. Take note: get your punk on!



E N I L É C

I D N E F

L E N A H C

9


T T O C S N E R W ’ L

t i n k e h T

E N I L É C

s g a b d e l d n a h t r o h S

Say cheers to the sling bag and satchel – we’ve been seeing the short-handled doctor’s bag in the collections of all the designers. Wear it delicately on the wrist for a ladylike approach to accessories. Think Audrey Hepburn in Breakfast at Tiffany’s .

Y R R E B R U B

G N A W R E D N A X E L A

A R A M X A M

fashion mc

R E L G U M Y R R E I H T

Always classic, slick tailoring is a must for the colder months. Opt for sharply cut suits, trousers, fitted skirts and wear-witheverything blazers.

U I M U I M

I C C I R A N I N

d e r o l i a T

11

I C C I R A N I N


1

Think Alfred Hitchcock’s leading ladies – cinched-in waists, voluminous, kneelength skirts, red lipstick and retro waves. Look to iconic fabrics like tweed and silhouettes of the ‘50s for total femininity.

N O T I T I U V S I U O L

r u o m a l g d o o w y l l o H d l O

Gold, jewel-tones, extravagant jewels, e cornamental textures and Byzantine n crosses make for this season’s luxe a z Look to Balmain, Alexander yfinish. and other designers who BMcQueen took inspiration from the decadent

M I L P I L L I H P

Renaissance and Medieval eras.

E N I L É C

N I A M L A B

10 s g a b k c a S

The new bag shape everyone is talking about is the non-bag shape – a soft-line pouch that sits under the arm effortlessly. This is a fresh take on the usually structured clutch.

g n i h t l r i g / y o b e h T

Androgyny was the focus of Paul Smith, Stella McCartney, Chloé and Alexander Wang. Pair stiff shirts and trousers with doublebreasted jackets and looser pieces for a relaxed look.

13

N I A M L A B

14 marieclaire.co.za

115

N E V R A C

1

I C C U P O I L I M E

e l g n u j n a b r U

E N I L É C

E N I L É C

Leather, lace and contoured silhouettes make up this fantasy winter fashion story. Go dark and Gothic – it’s all about floor-length hemlines, capes and spell-casting opulence.

A I Z I R K

16 É O L H C

y v a n e h t n I

F F O K A R K D E E R

Black can take a break as the staple colour for winter. Bring in key statement items or wear top-to-toe navy – this deep blue is back.

116

I L L A V A C O T R E B O R

This season, animal print roars again, so modernize the print with casual, easy-wearing staples. Look to wearing your skins in the form of loose trousers, sports jackets and blazers – perfect for women on the move.

Y R R E B R U B


I C C U G

p m a v e h T


17


M A L K E R E D

18


s e m a r f e y The iconic ‘60s e cat eye has had t a a makeover C this winter. Things

trends mc

O Z N E K

get a little more futuristic with boldly coloured frames and mirrored lenses. M O C . E E R T X A M I S H P A R G O T O H P G N U F Y L L E K N O I T C U D O R P D N A S D R O W

A H C O R E N O M I S

E T S O C A L

O Z N E K

20

s e o h s e l a M Unexpected volume and supersized proportions are refreshed and ready to go again. Wear exaggerated shapes and full-blown silhouettes proudly.

L X X

19


W U O L N A A I T S

I N R A M

I N R A M

s e o h S s i H n I


Shoes were powerful on the Marni, Michael Kors and Dries Van Noten catwalks. Go for brogues, slip-ins and loafers and pair with trousers for the androgynous look. marieclaire.co.za

117

mc competition

win

�� LUCKY MARIE CLAIRE READERS WILL WIN A SIX SENSATIONAL SKINCARE HAMPER VALUED AT R3 200

Whether your desire is to maintain a vibrant and healthy glow, restore hydration or sl slow ow down the ageing age ing process, the SIX Sensational Skincare line aims to achieve beautiful skin! Considered a perfect number, SIX also relates to purity, harmony, balance and the ultimate nurturer. SIX’s vision is simple and clear: your skin deserves the best. The products aim to not only boost appearance but also to maintain the first line of defence against toxins, irritants, bacteria and other environmental stressors. SIX’s line of skin-care products uses active ingredients and fruit extracts to supply the essentials you need for healthy, glowing skin and to achieve superior results. Sixskincare.com

EACH SIX SENSATIONAL SKINCARE HAMPER COMPRISES THE FULL RANGE OF 10 PRODUCTS: Flawless Cleansing Oil, enriched with a cocktail o essential oils to melt away dirt and leave skin squeaky clean; Gentle Foaming Foaming Face Wash; Wash; Balancing Lotion; Cranberry Exoliating Cream; Instant Firming Mask; Anti Ageing Moisturiser; Vitamin Booster Oil; Eye & Lip Sof Exoliator; Eye & Lip Mask, enriched with wheat germ oil to sofen and hydrate; Magnificent Eye Gel; Lifing Eye Cream. All valued at R3 200 200

HOW TO TO ENTER EN TER

TO STAND A CHANCE OF WINNING THIS FANTASTIC PRIZE, SEND AN SMS TO 35438 BEFORE 31 MARCH 2014. DON’T USE PUNCTUA PUNC TUATION TION AND BEGIN B EGIN YOUR MESSAGE WITH ‘MC SIX’ FOLLOWED BY YOUR NAME, SURNAME, POSTAL ADDRESS AND E-MAIL ADDRESS. (SMS COSTS R1,50; SEE STOCKISTS PAGE FOR COMPETITION RULES.)

118



beauty

BOW TO THE BROW

A strong strong and well-groome well-groomedd set of brows are a beauty must. These face definers go beyond a passing trend and have become an essential part of any woman’s beauty routine. Once shaped and tweezed, fill in gaps with a brow pencil using small, light strokes, then soften any hard lines by brushing them through, going upwards and outwards.

marieclaire.co.za

119

ALL THAT GLITTERS

With a barely there make-up look – dewy skin and blushed lips – increase the wow factor with a metallic disco flash across the eyes, a look iconic to the ‘70s. Use a silver cream shadow over the lids or loose glitter for a more intense shine. Simply cover the lids in a nude cream shadow – providing a base for the glitter to cling to – and, finally, create muchneeded definition around the eyes by coating the lashes in a few layers of mascara.

120


beauty mc

PINK POUT

If your lips are going to be taking the centre of attention this winter, then opt for a bright, bubblegum pink and make sure it has a matte finish. Lipsticks without gloss usually have a drying effect on the lips, so ensure yours are in pristine condition – hydrated, smooth and soft. Buff dry skin away and apply a lip conditioner regularly. And, a trick from the pros, fill in your lips with a similar colour pencil before layering on your lip colour for extra precision and longevity.

Matte

THE START OF A NEW SEASON ALWAYS MEANS WE CAN LOOK FORWARD TO FRESH TRENDS. THIS WINTER, COMBINE THESE TWO OPPOSING FINISHES FOR A MODERN BEAUTY LOOK

& Shine

WORDS KELLY FUNG PHOTOGRAPHS JASON HETHERINGTON STYLING LISA OXENHAM

marieclaire.co.za

121

COLOUR SMUDGE

Loosely applied eye shadow is the order of the season. Pick a flattering shade and sweep over the lids, into the sockets and extend along the lower lash lines. To keep the look ethereal, avoid any eyeliner and, instead, opt for a slick of mascara to define the eyes. Keep skin dewy and lips neutral with a pink lip stain with a subtle sheen.

122


M L C / H T E N D E A Z M E R I G P A I L N A A R I M L A E H D N I O M K S E L M I A F E O R R D P / E L N O A T T R O T U B E R N U E T L P L A E C L D E N D A O N M O I T N O C I T E L L C E L O L C O G C N I E R R P U S C I N N O A N M A I T R T O C I R R O I P A D R G O N I I D S U G R N I O I S U D E N T A S I T I T S I P A R B H C S I S N E M L U F G R E A R P U R C I O F N A M L M C / L E E R N O N M O I I L L S S A E G F O W R E P R L D A N É A R O P ’ U - L G E K N I A S M U

beauty mc ICE BOX COLORS NAIL LUSTRE IN NOUGAT ICE, R110.

INGLOT COSMETICS AMC PURE PIGMENT EYE SHADOW IN 23, R189.

MAC RETRO MATTE LIPSTICK IN FLAT OUT FABULOUS, R190.

INGLOT COSMETICS FREEDOM SYSTEM EYE SHADOW SQUARES IN 151-155 (CHOOSE YOUR OWN COLOURS), R89 PER SQUARE.

CLARINS EYEBROW PENCIL IN DARK BROWN, R205.

IN YOUR KIT GET THE ‘MATTE & SHINE’ FINISH

BY ADDING THESE PRODUCTS TO YOUR MAKE-UP BAG

D E I L P P U S S H P A R G O T O H P G N U F Y L L E K Y B D E L I P M O C

SMASHBOX PHOTO FINISH FOUNDATION PRIMER, 30ML, R350.

DIOR DIORSKIN NUDE SKINGLOWING MAKEUP SPF 15, 30ML, R630.

BADGER LIP TINT & SHIMMER, R75 EACH.

marie claire. co.za

123

��

time to shine THIS MONTH

OUR BEAUTY EDITOR DISCOVERS A NEW APPRECIATION OF GOLD, SHIMMER AND ALL THAT SPARKLES WITH EYE-CATCHING PARTY LOOKS

ESSENCE NAIL ART TWINS RELOADED GLITTER TOPPER IN 01 BELLA, R20.

WORDS MATHAHLE STOFILE

s

o here’s the thing: you get women who love plenty of glitter and shine in their make-up, and then you get those who would rather keep the sparkle limited to their jewellery. I’m definitely the latter. For me, there is something very sophisticated about a non-shiny lipstick or a matte eye shadow. Even when I was younger, sparkles were never quite my thing. Glitter still upsets me because it never quite comes off. Make-up is supposed to be fun – I get it. Which is why I decided to take home a few shimmery products and experiment with several looks, using my own application methods in order to tone things down a little for this matte girl. As I got home and started unpacking the goodies, I was taken aback by how beautiful they looked in their packaging and I started thinking to myself how delightful it would be if I were actually that girl who likes sparkles. Oh, the fun I would have! So I started playing around, and guess what? I discovered some gems… R E N G I A

124

Look 1

Look 2

Look 3

Nails are the easiest way to add a little out-of-character craziness when it comes to beauty. If you’re really sceptical, paint your toenails in a glitter or shimmer shade and pair it with fabulous sandals. Feeling braver than that? Do a statement nail – keep four nails out of each hand painted in a solid colour and choose one to paint in an unexpected shimmer. Or go full house and paint all 10 in something exciting.

A party look I also fell in love with involves taking gold liquid eyeliner and only lining the top lids. Play around by either creating a dramatic cat eye or a straight line that stops at the outer corner of each eye. Follow with gold mascara applied only at the tips of the lashes.

If you are not used to sparkles, start by dabbing a little shimmer eye shadow on the inner corners of both eyes. Blend this using an ear bud going into the lids (but not covering the whole lid). Take a solid, matte eye shadow in a natural, soft tone – like a light brown – and apply it all over the top lids leaving a subtle shimmer in the corners, which is only noticeable at certain angles.


N A V D D U J S H D P E I A L R P G P O U T S O D H N P A E M L I F O C O . T E S E E R L T X H A A H M T I A , G M R S U B D S R N O E W R

beauty

mc

CHANEL ILLUSION D’OMBRE LONG WEAR LUMINOUS EYE SHADOW IN 837 FATAL, R420.

CATRICE LIQUID METAL EYE SHADOW IN 080 MAUVES LIKE JAGGER, R59.

CATRICE LIQUID METAL EYE SHADOW IN 020 GOLD N’ ROSES, R59.

SHISEIDO SHIMMERING CREAM EYE COLOR IN PK 214 PALE SHELL, R395. ICE BOX COLORS NAIL LUSTRE IN METAMORPHOSE, R110.

BLACK UP LIQUID EYELINER IN ELL02 GOLD, R375.

marie claire. co.za

125

mc beauty DERMALOGICA ULTRACALMING MIST, 177ML, R480. INGLOT LIPSTICK IN 172, R149.

ELIZABETH ARDEN RED DOOR EDT, 100ML, R525. DERMALOGICA BARRIER REPAIR, 30ML, R510.

��

WITH

thando hopa

MIZANI TRUE TEXTURES MOISTURE STRETCH FOR NATURAL CURLS, 240ML, R159.

Thando’s beauty crush is Diandra Forrest.

i

played outside a lot as a child and it was my best friend who would ensure I always wore sunscreen and had a fun time. I’d say the person I’m closest to is my boyfriend; he knows more about me than most people would ever know. My beauty routine is pretty much the same daily. In the mornings, I use Dermalogica’s UltraCalming range to cleanse and moisturize as my skin is very sensitive and I use a Dermalogica serum before bedtime. I also use the Redness Relief SPF 20 – sunscreen is always essential. In my handbag,I always have a lipstick and Dermalogica Ultracalming Mist. I also use Dermalogica’s Skin Hydrating Masque once a week. One beauty rule I don’t break is skipping my skin-care routine. I have become extremely dependent on these products because my skin is easily irritated and reddens quickly. The first grooming product I ever bought myself was an eyebrow pencil – I wanted to see how my eyebrows looked darker – and my first perfume was Elizabeth Arden Red Door.

126


DERMALOGICA ULTRACALMING CLEANSER, 250ML, R430.

INGLOT LIPSTICK IN 194, R149.

INGLOT LIPSTICK IN 278, R149.

THE SOUTH AFRICAN PROSECUTOR, ��, WAS THE FACE OF DESIGNER GERT-JOHAN COETZEE’S RECENT SA FASHION WEEK SHOW. HERE, SHE SHARES HER BEAUTY SECRETS On weekends and on nights out I use base, a product called Bella Terra Mineral Foundation. I don’t have a signature lipstick shade – I like using different hues as it is interesting to see how my skin complements different colours. I really let the outfit determine the shade of lipstick, but I can say I do use nude lipstick quite often. I normally have my hair natural, in an Afro. I prefer my hair longer as it is easier to play with. My dad has always called me nwelezelanga , meaning ‘sun hair’. Sometimes I comb it and sometimes I leave it curly as it has more character. I have done everything to my hair apart from putting in a weave – I just don’t like that look. I’ve always been curious to see what my hair would look like in another colour but, realistically, I probably wouldn’t try it because I love my hair colour and would not want to compromise it. I guess I could always try coloured wigs. I am not much of a nail person, as it’s such a drama when they break, but for special

occasions I’ll make an exception. Michell Sierra at NailCandi is great. For my make-up, I like a simple, minimalist look, one that shows you take care but wasn’t too much effort. It has been said that simplicity is elegance, and I agree. I find too much makeup off-putting; it just makes me wonder if there’s a face somewhere underneath all that. My beauty crush is Diandra Forrest. She has a certain ease about her. She is fiercely confident without trying. She was the first young, black role model with albinism that I got to see. I couldn’t take my eyes off her when I saw her on The Tyra Banks Show on YouTube. She is a supermodel who seems to know herself. That is an amazing quality to exude – one of self-awareness. It goes without saying that she is stunning, and her pictures encourage versatility and art. One day I’ll teach my daughter to always use sunscreen no matter what her skin colour; and also to cleanse properly as sunscreens tend to clog your pores.

D E I L P P U S D N A L L A W G N I D N I T S U J S H P A R G O T O H P E L I F O T S E L H A H T A M O T D L O T S A

health mc

Y D s O k B r 1 o w

D N I M N I T H L A H E R O U Y Core Fit Pilates is H P E h r R O F W I T G a vibrant studio O N P P I P T O S K I B U R N U

CA N

BOBBLE SPORT Staying in shape means

having the right equipment! Enter the new Bobble Sport, which takes the elements that have already made Bobble a global eco-phenomenon – the filter, the sleek shape, the great colours – and adds elements tailored to athletic use, no matter what your activity. The Bobble Sport holds 750ml of water, is recycable, dishwasher-safe and available in vibrant blue or flash magenta.And now you can also buy Bobble’s new lifestyle accessories – the Bobble Ice Tray and the Bobble Brush (a cleaning tool). The Bobble Sport and accessories are available at Cape Union Mart, @home and Wellness Warehouse. Waterbobble.com WIN! You have the chance to win one of 10 Bobble Sports valued at R140. Send an SMS to 35438 before 31 March 2014. Begin your SMS with ‘MC Bobble’ followed by your name, surname, e-mail address and postal address*.

D N A D E R I E L V P I L P U O A S C D I S N S A E S J , O T N O A H P M P K O C O K O T H S A K N R I A H S / , T N S E O S G A A M I M E T O A L L K A S G , D R S N O Y E W H S A E L N U A , R J Y N K S O I T W I T O E R P O B M O C N Y R B O O F R S S T H S P I K A C R O T G S O T E O E H S . P 0 L 5 , L 1 E R W S M T A S R B O C E S N E M L S E * H

s c i m Y t i D l O o B p

N A M P y thighs touch. And O I wear full-piece O bathing suits. K HI’m out of the running to be Afeatured on ‘thinspo’ (thin R Ainspiration) Tumblr sites. To S Tmake the cut, I would need S I to be able to post closely Ncropped photos of a Thigh M UGap (also called a Box Gap) and a Bikini LBridge. First came the Thigh Gap, which, O Cas the name suggests, is the cul-de-sac

between your inner thighs, meaning they don’t touch, with an acceptable width of v is i t o ur around at least 10 centimetres. Now, the Thigh Gap has been knocked F or m on t fi tn e s s hl y h ea l t h off its fat-shaming pedestal by the s , c a nd o t o t ip he c k Bikini Bridge – the latest trend to take ur s it e M a ri u a c e l a i r e . c o t .z a a swipe at your body image. Much like Thigh Gaps, Bikini Bridges are easy enough to identify. Lie flat on your back, watch for hip bones that jut out and then look on as your bikini waistband lifts from your abdomen, forming a valley-like space below. If, like me, your waistband remains firmly against your skin as gravity refuses to make your belly disappear, you may well be wasting your time even donning a two-piece swimsuit. The Bikini Bridge has its roots in 2009, courtesy of a Tumblr site and its definition’s first inclusion

s it e

l

c a 0 1 3 0

d located on Sea n Point Main Road e in Cape Town. Founded by r vibrant Robyn Borowsky, tthe a variety of group, private and personal-training classes s are offered from beginner s through to advanced level, e including cardio-based dance n Pilatio workouts. With her tand extensive qualifications and fi experience, Robyn’s entertaining and challenging sessions use the correct tools to build great posture and lean, toned muscles.The balance between core strength and flexibility is

achieved through a sequence of warm-up stretches, standing balances and core-tightening and leg-strengthening floor work using a ball, foam roller and Pilates hoop. Core Fit Pilates also offers a pre-natal Preggy Pilates class, which not only helps expectant mothers keep their core and back muscles strong during and after pregnancy, but is also a great opportunity to meet fellow moms-to-be in a fun and relaxed environment. Corefitpilates.co.za

Beauty therapist

&

Helene Bramwell from The Mask

answers your beauty questions.

E-mail your query to marieclaire@ assocmedia.co.za Q: How does one know which facial/

From left

A Bikini Bridge; in the Urban a Thigh Dictionary. As Gap.

deplorable as trends like these are, they take a real effort to ignore. Even the most body-confident among us know that strange obsessions like these worm their way into our subconscious and have us absent-mindedly pondering over them, as we look at our naked reflections. Trends like these promote an obsession over some of the most negligible parts of our bodies. Parts largely dependent on a genetic lottery. Are we to see new cosmetic surgeries to change our pelvis size, shape and positioning? Or will we read ‘health’ books dedicated to the Bikini Bridge diet? And as we try to outBikini Bridge each other on social media, it sometimes feels like our insecurities are too easy to pit us against each other. Sometimes I wish the bridge over them was easier to build or cross.

treatment to choose based on your skin type, age and ailments etc? A: It’s best to be guided by a skin therapist who understands the treatments, knows what’s available and can match them to your specific skin and its condition. Microdermabrasion is a treatment that could denude the surface of the skin of its keratinocytes (protective, dead skin cells), which play a vital role in maintaining healthy skin. The skin needs to be well assessed – it is ideal for thickened, oily skins. An appropriate treatment directly after a microdermabrasion is essential. Chemical peels are a better option, especially if they are done gently and regularly, to treat specific conditions such as rosacea, mild acne breakouts and topical pigmentation. Facials vary from deep cleansing the skin to massaging it with rich creams and even infusing nutrients that the skin requires into its deeper layers, so there is a facial treatment that pretty much suits each and every skin type and condition. Mesotherapy (skin-needling treatments) help many skin conditions but are an essential tool for treating ageing, thinning skin. An in-depth consultation is required, as this treatment needs some forward planning, but is so very rewarding. marieclaire.co.za

127

mc horoscopes

MARCH pisces (20 FEB – 20 MAR)

You may suspect you are trying to answer a seemingly impossible question, but that you don’t have enough information to make an informed choice or time to wait around hoping to learn more. Reduce the sense of pressure. Give yourself more time. Award yourself more respect! Trust your intelligence and intuition. Something within you now feels sure about what to do. Don’t seek an explanation, just be guided by this feeling. I’ve got much more news for you. Stay updated. Get your daily, weekly and monthly forecasts by phone. Just text ‘Claire20’ to 40210.

JONATHAN CAINER’S MONTHLY FORECAST

aries (21 MAR – 20 APR) There are times when being smart means making great use of your skills. There are others when it’s smarter to accept whatever life brings your way. In March, let others call the shots and try not to think about how you might do things differently. A short-term decision to reduce your stress levels will not reduce your ability to do things your way next time. I’ve got much more news for you. Stay updated. Get your daily, weekly and monthly forecasts by phone. Just text ‘Claire20’ to 40210.

taurus (21 APR – 21 MAY) In March, you are conscious of conflicting pulls on your time and energy. If you aim to please one person, you may displease someone else. Whilst it is wonderful to be sensitive to the needs of others, you need to heed and respect your own feelings. Life will give you the chance to do that. But will you take it? I’ve got much more news for you. Stay updated. Get your daily, weekly and monthly forecasts by phone. Just text ‘Claire20’ to 40210.

gemini (22 MAY – 22 JUN) A drama has been dragging on for too long. March brings the chance to move on. If fear is holding you back, here’s the ability to rise above it. If it is a genuine desire to protect someone who is not ready for change, you can help to prepare them. It is unlikely that you can resist the force rolling into your world but it is possible to work with it to the advantage of all. I’ve got much more news for you. Stay updated. Get your daily, weekly and monthly forecasts by phone. Just text ‘Claire20’ to 40210.

cancer (23 JUN – 23 JUL) You are not going to be drawn into a futile argument this

month or antagonized into thinking about something that isn’t worthy of your energy. You are going to remain wise and incisive while your sense of perspective turns into a magic carpet on which you float above the March madness. Aren’t you? Well of course you are, now you’ve read this! I’ve got much more news for you. Stay updated. Get your daily, weekly and monthly forecasts by phone. Just text ‘Claire20’ to 40210.

leo (24 JUL – 23 AUG) We are all yo-yos. We go up, we go down. Our energy levels fluctuate – as do our emotions. We can either laugh at a problem or be deeply daunted by it. Whatever March may hold in store, remember you will need to make light of it. That will take time and effort, fortitude and grace. But these are all resources you can draw on and apply most successfully. I’ve got much more news for you. Stay updated. Get your daily, weekly and monthly forecasts by phone. Just text ‘Claire20’ to 40210.

virgo (24 AUG – 23 SEP) Have faith in the future. It belongs to you and it is getting ready to welcome you with open arms. If something seems wrong ask yourself why it seems so important? There’s nothing but hope and happiness ahead, so to reach the positive future you deserve in March, drop yesterday’s redundant dream and embrace tomorrow’s inspiring vision. I’ve got much more news for you. Stay

forces that seemingly require a defence mechanism to protect you from a harsh world. However, a simple air of confidence is all you need. I’ve got much more news for you. Stay updated. Get your daily, weekly and monthly forecasts by phone. Just text ‘Claire20’ to 40210.

scorpio (24 OCT – 22 NOV) In March, you have to make a big decision. If the choice is difficult it is because things seem almost too good. You may ask yourself,‘Dare I really allow myself to want what seems to be on offer?’ If you are prepared to accept the consequences, you can have it. I’ve got much more news for you. Stay updated. Get your daily, weekly and monthly forecasts by phone. Just text ‘Claire20’ to 40210.

sagittarius (23 NOV – 21 DEC) You have a clear idea about the shape you wish the coming month to take but Jupiter’s change of direction suggests that March has an idea of its own! Don’t just ‘accept’ whatever is being imposed on you, embrace it wholeheartedly. A drama needs to play itself out. Though it isn’t entirely of your choosing, its outcome will benefit you greatly. I’ve got much more news for you. Stay updated. Get your daily, weekly and monthly forecasts by phone. Just text ‘Claire20’ to 40210.

capricorn (22 DEC – 20 JAN) Arguments, like bad habits, are easy to get into and difficult to get out of. Solutions are more like perfectly fitting shoes. It may initially be a squeeze but then they never give you any more trouble. Don’t assume something is wrong, this month, because at first it seems difficult. You shouldn’t feel obliged to deepen a dispute because you disagree with someone’s position. Look for constructive ways to move forward and you will find them in March. I’ve got much more news for you. Stay updated. Get your daily, weekly and monthly forecasts by phone. Just text ‘Claire20’ to 40210.

aquarius (21 JAN – 19 FEB)

libra (24 SEP – 23 OCT)

A changing cosmic climate in March suggests it is a time to reflect, to seek wisdom and deeper truths. It is also a time to pay bills, discharge duties, honour obligations and respect realities. Use this as a chance to find magic in the mundane and inspiration in the ordinary.There’s delight in store for you this month, and the potential for happiness will reveal itself where you are least likely to find it. I’ve got much more news

You generally command respect and attention whenever you need it, just by being yourself. But in March you face

for you. Stay updated. Get your daily,weekly and monthly forecasts by phone. Just text ‘Claire20’ to 40210.

updated. Get your daily, weekly and monthly forecasts by phone. Just text ‘Claire20’ to 40210.

To get your forecast by phone, SMS ‘Claire20’ to 40210. This is a subscription service that costs R20 per month. SMS ‘STOP’ to 40210 to unsubscribe.

128

marieclaire march 2014

S O T O H P K C O T S K N I H T / S E G A M I O L L A G D N U O R G K C A B S M A H A R B A A L E I M A K N O I T A R T S U L L I R E N I A C N A H T A N O J S D R O W

downtim A Z . O C . O C D N A T F O R C , 4 3 6 3 6 4 6 1 1 0 , G R U B ’ O J , W E I V K R A P , E U N E V A E N O R Y T 6 6 , O C & T F O R C N O I T A C O L G N U O Y A S L E H P A R G O T O H P N O R E H T E T T E I R A M N O I T C U D O R P

s y t t i l a e a r u t

Q WELCOME TO OLD-SCHOOL CAFÉ CROFT & CO. CHEF ANNE RICH, THE SISTER TO OWNER GRANT RAVENSCROFT, SHARES THE RECIPES FOR HER KITCHEN FAVOURITES

Clockwise from above Interior

design at Croft & Co,the ideal spot for a working lunch; wall art by Hannelie Coetzee; a framed sketch by Nelson Makamo; a breakfast favourite – Nutella on toast. Opposite Prosciutto and melon salad with basil dressing.

130


WORDS JESSICA OLIVER PRODUCTION MARIETTE THERON PHOTOGRAPHS ELSA YOUNG RECIPES ANNE RICH

food mc

marieclaire.co.za

131

‘We’ll serve a ham-and-

w i l l t i t u b , w ic h d n a s e s c hee be m ad e w it h P ar m a h am a nd g ood c he e s e ’

132


food mc

Clockwise from left Croft & Co’s

crowd-pleaser Prego roll; owner Grant Ravenscroft takes a coffee break; Mandla, a waiter, chats to Ravenscroft’s wife Marisa. Opposite Fruit salad and muesli.

Croft & Co, on Parkview’s Tyrone Avenue in Jo’burg, is a neighbourhood favourite. With its ‘eclectic rustic’ interior, the shop was transformed by owner Grant Ravenscroft from a men’s luxury-goods boutique into an old-school café, offering coffees, sandwiches, salads and drinks. The idea is to keep the food simple but of good quality. Grant says,‘We’ll serve a hamand-cheese sandwich, but it will be made with Parma ham and good cheese.’ Kids and their parents flock to Croft & Co before school to enjoy Nutella on toast and, on Thursday and Friday evenings, the place is swarming with lovers of the café’s famous Prego roll. Ravenscroft, who also started up the nearby Scusi and sushi restaurant Bite in Greenside, values his connection with his clients – on weekends you’re likely to find him in the planted backyard enjoying a cigar with customers. Croft & Co’s chef (and Ravenscroft’s sister), Anne Rich, trained as a Cordon Bleu chef at Cape Town’s Silwood Kitchen and has worked at La Maison in Pretoria, done stints in London, lectured chefs and has helped Ravenscroft on other culinary ventures. Here, she shares some secrets from the Croft & Co kitchen. Croftandco.co.za marieclaire.co.za

133

mc food

THE PERFECT SCRAMBLED EGGS                 

Whisk the eggs, salt and cream together.  Gently heat a bit of butter in a pan. Add the egg mixture and stir with a wooden spoon.  Serve with grilled bacon, toast and poached cherry tomatoes (optional).  TIP: The trick for perfect, creamy eggs is not to cook them on too high a heat. The balance of egg and cream has to be just right. Too much cream and you end up with watery, tasteless eggs. 

Serves 1

FRUIT SALAD                      

134


           

Add all the fruit to the sugar water and allow to stand. Use this as a base as none of these fruits discolour.  Before serving add seasonal fruit: apples, bananas, strawberries, peaches, mangoes etc. 

 

PROSCIUTTO AND MELON SALAD WITH BASIL DRESSING                                 1 /                        

                         

Place the melon and the spanspek in the centre of a plate.  Place two pieces of Prosciutto flat on your work surface. Put some lettuce in the centre and roll up like a swiss roll.  Place on top of the melon. Layer the cucumber, tomatoes, peppers and radishes over the lettuce rolls.  Top the salad with the remaining Prosciutto and Parmesan shavings.  If you have avocado, place around the outside of the plate with the figs.  Serve with basil dressing (see below). 

     

Blend all ingredients together.

Serves 1

4 3 6 3 6 4 6 1 1 0 , G R U B ’ O J , W E I V K R A P , E U N E V A E N O R Y T 6 6 , O C & T F O R C        

travel mc SIP ON THIS, SNACK ON THAT

48 hours in

Club Med

Guilin

MARISA CROUS IS ENCHANTED BY A GRAND NEW RESORT IN SOUTHERN CHINA WORDS MARISA CROUS

a

mere hour’s flight from bustling Hong Kong sits the all-new, allinclusive and serene Club Med Guilin. The setting is romantic yet understated, as the resort lies within the Yuzi Paradiza Sculpture National Park in the south of China; a perfect mix of unspoiled nature and contemporary cool.

Retreat to the Zen area where you can attend daily yoga sessions or splash around in the vast indoor swimming pool, which offers spectacular views of Guilin’s limestone peaks. 

SLEEP HERE, STAY THERE

Choose between two hotels separated by footpaths, which are ideal for early-morning or late-afternoon strolls. The Courtyard Building features a variety of modern club or deluxe rooms – with either mountain or garden views. All rooms have Wi-Fi access, room service and many have connecting rooms for families with children. The very luxe and grass-roofed Hotel of Modern Art (HOMA) has 46 artistdesigned guestrooms, each showcasing different elements of local culture. 

PAUSE HERE, RELAX THERE

Pause in the red foyer of the twin-winged resort as a stellar window view of infinite green lawns – housing over a hundred unique sculptures – greets you along with several caves, terraced rice fields and the mist-enveloped sugarloaf mountains that dot the area.  Take a bus to the open-air Shanshui Theatre in Yangshuo, then sip local beer and snack on ginger brittle as you watch the world-renowned Impression Liu Sanjie Show , featuring over 600 local artists, performing on a two-kilometre stage set on the Li River. The region’s mystical scenery helps to tell the story of the famous folk heroine Liu Sanjie’s messy love triangle.  Cross a concrete lily pad walkway, slip off your shoes and indulge in a treatment in one of many private double-storey pampering rooms at the resort’s Comfort Zone Spa. 

S U O R C A S I R A M S H P A R G O T O H P

Head outdoors for a memorable breakfast set nearby a cascading waterfall. The restaurant’s pool area in front provides the perfect setting for lazy day pool-side lounging with cocktail in hand. When you get peckish, visit the resort’s main eatery The Atelier, which offers an infinite mix of international and local dishes buffet-style, and has a chic bar for sundowners.  Pop into the cosy Lotus restaurant at the HOMA for an intimate dinner. Make your à la carte selection from local Chinese specialties or international epicurean delights, while sipping on French wines or Chinese beers.  Sample Guilin spicy noodles from Noodle Bar in the Courtyard, which is open till late and offers a small menu of four regional dishes including spicy, vegetarian, beef and chicken options; then head over to the slightly retro Moon Bar’s quad for after-dinner drinks and stargazing. 

GETTING THERE

Club Med has launched its ‘Discovery Stopover’ product, which makes long-haul travelling less tedious. Available since 1 November 2013, the offering encourages guests to combine their Club Med holiday with a few nights’ stay in another city. For example, guests travelling to Club Med Guilin will have the option to experience Hong Kong as part of the package. Clubmed.co.za 

Clockwise from top Club Med

Guilin; breakfast at The Atelier; the sugarloaf mountains; a blend of Guilin spicy noodles and local produce; the exquisite architecture breathes contemporary cool; the red foyer. marieclaire.co.za

135

A taste of

HAWAII SHRIMP SHACKS, SHAVE-ICE TREATS, HIDDEN WATERFALLS AND SECRET BEACHES. WHAT MORE COULD YOU WANT FROM AN ISLAND? WORDS SARAH KHAN

u

S President Obama and his family spent their 2013/14 winter holiday in Honolulu.Prince Jackson was spotted there around the same time as hot couple Sean Penn and Charlize Theron. Honolulu, on the island of Oahu, is the gateway to Hawaii. It’s also where the volcanic archipelago’s natural virtues meld seamlessly with more materialistic pleasures: the golden playground is fringed by cerulean waters on one side and iconic resorts, like the rosecoloured Royal Hawaiian, on the other; just beyond the strip of luxe hotels lies Kalakaua Avenue, a posh main drag lined with Chanel, Bottega Veneta and Cartier boutiques. I book a spacious room at the Hilton Hawaiian Village – where the likes of Elvis Presley and Prince’s father, Michael Jackson, have rested their heads – which presides over a prime hunk of ocean-front real estate on Waikiki Beach. While it hosts thousands of families, spring breakers and conference goers alike, the resort’s sleek, luxurious Ali’i Tower is

136


a sophisticated respite. The third-floor private pool deck seems a world away from the rest of the resort, and proves to be a prime spot to take in the weekly fireworks display on balmy Friday evenings. Part of a cluster of specks floating in the isolated depths of the Pacific Ocean, Hawaii is a far-flung place where most visitors prefer to pick one island and spend a week or two in one resort. Instead, I’ve planned an ambitious tasting tour of a handful: 10 days of the best of Oahu, Kauai and Maui. Glittering Honolulu is a bustling metropolis crowned by the Diamond Head crater. Close to sunset, I hike the circuitous path that winds around it, and my reward at the top is a stunning panorama over a city seemingly borne from the ocean. The skyscrapers appear to teeter along the water’s edge, looking as if they might tumble in at any moment. The next day I drive north through lush inland plantations and rolling fields, until I arrive at the famed surfing areas of the North Shore. Sunset Beach is regularly pummelled by

Clockwise from top left Waikiki Beach;

a bronze statue of Duke Kahanamoku welcomes you to Waikiki; the Waikiki Twin Towers are situated right on the Ala Wai Canal in Oahu; a Sephora outlet in Honolulu; longboards for rent on Waikiki Beach; tourists cover every inch of sand on Waikiki beach; President Obama enjoying a shave ice on a recent trip to Hawaii; downtown Honolulu.

travel mc

S E R U T A E F X E R D N A I K S R A G N I Z D N A J E D , ) G B . O I D U T S X E L A ( V E T I M X E L A S H P A R G O T O H P

12-metre-high waves in winter but, when I arrive, the jade waters are peaceful and the northern coast seems oceans apart from the shimmering spires of Honolulu. Informal shrimp shacks line the stretch of Kamehameha Highway that traces the coast, and I pull in next to Giovanni’s, a truck coated in graffiti scrawled on it by happy patrons. After a plate of juicy, spicy shrimps wok-seared in butter and served with rice, I cleanse my palate with a refreshing coconut, mango and strawberry shave-ice dessert – Hawaii’s famed sugary treat. (It’s like a snow cone but the ice is shaved from a block rather than crushed.) I leave Oahu for Hawaii’s garden isle, Kauai. Thanks to its cameos in movies like Jurassic Park , Tropic Thunder , and The Descendants , Kauai’s raw, natural beauty has long been etched in my psyche. The island is a hiker’s paradise, with thousands of trails leading to hidden waterfalls and secret beaches. But my favourite part is the little-known Hindu monastery, a lush, serene oasis overlooking a river. The best way to see an island that’s 90 per cent undeveloped and inaccessible by road is by booking a helicopter tour – from 1 500 metres high, the views of the protected and prehistoric landscapes are staggering. We hover over the lush Waimea Canyon, often called the Grand Canyon of the Pacific, then skirt along the sheer cliffs of the dramatic Napali Coast, dotted with secluded beaches only accessible by boat. Kauai seems to have won the natural lottery, a stunning showcase of scenic majesty – but it’s also managed to retain its identity and keep tourism mostly at bay. I head back to the Grand Hyatt Kauai just in time to watch a dazzling sunset framed by the open-air lobby, and feast on one of the best meals of my trip at the hotel’s Tidepools restaurant: ahi tuna with foie gras -infused rice, a macadamia-crusted mahi-mahi (a ray-finned fish), and succulent steak. The island of Maui is Hawaii’s golden child, known for its pristine beaches, the posh resorts that line them, and for its many scenic drives. It’s the kind of place where you go for a few days and wind up staying forever – indeed, many of the locals are expats who have been wholly embedded into the fabric of island life. If you look at the winding road to Hana, a town on the eastern tip of the island, on a map, it appears like a senselessly etched series of squiggles. Those brave enough to traverse this route are rewarded with beautiful black-sand beaches and a series of waterfalls along the way. If you’re looking to stay somewhere that feels more like your friend’s stylish beach house, try the ultra-modern Andaz Maui at Wailea, a minimalist resort with quirky

Clockwise from right

Hahalawe Falls in Kipahulu, Maui; Hilton Hawaiian Village; world-famous shrimp from Giovanni’s Shrimp Truck.

v is i t o ur

s it e

F or a I sl a d M a un G i n ui d K au M a r i a nd a e t o ec l a i r e . c oi, v i si t .z a

ISLAND GUIDE Oahu



Hilton Hawaiian Village

A massive complex with seven towers, five pools and great shopping (Louis Vuitton, anyone?), set right on Waikiki Beach. Hiltonhawaiianvillage.com  Nico’s at Pier 38

Fresh fish bought daily at the largest fish auction in the US is served at this eatery on Honolulu’s Pier 38. Order the furikaka pan-seared ahi, crusted in fresh Japanese seaweed. Nicospier38.com 

Cameron Diaz.

Bradley Cooper.

Duke’s Waikiki

A Honolulu institution, named for Duke Kahanamoku, the man who brought surfing to the world. The Hula Pie – macadamia-nut ice cream slathered on a cookie crust and doused with chocolate fudge, whipped cream and nuts – is a must. Dukeswaikiki.com 

touches like a sandpit in the the lobby. At the apothecary-like spa, a therapist treats me to a luscious, customized blend of cucumber juice, strawberries and macadamia-nut oil. Families may prefer the suites at the Fairmont Kea Lani nearby, a playground for grown-ups and children alike – there’s both a water slide for the kids, and an adults-only pool. One night, our waiter at Ko, the Fairmont’s signature restaurant, clues us into a hidden snorkelling spot where locals have planted a ‘No Parking’ sign to misdirect tourists. On our last day in Hawaii, I’m eager to make the drive up to Mount Haleakala¯, rumoured to host one of the world’s most epic sunrises. But getting up at 3am to make the two-hour drive, only to jostle for space on top of a 3 000-metrehigh crater with other tourists, does not sound appealing and we opt instead to go for sunset. We wind up twisting roads past sugarcanecrusted fields and up to the summit of Haleakala¯. The clouds form a thick carpet beneath us and the sun casts a saffron glow over them before sinking down into the white abyss. There are surprises around every palm tree here, and moments to celebrate at any height.

CELEBS SPOTTED IN HAWAII

Giovanni’s Shrimp Truck

The best of all the shrimp shacks lining Hawaii’s North Shore. Orlando Bloom. Giovannisshrimptruck.com  Doris Duke’s Shangri-La

A centre for Islamic arts and culture. Bookings for guided tours must be done weeks in advance, and begin at the Honolulu Museum of Art. Shangrilahawaii.org

Jennifer Aniston and Justin Theroux.

Rosie HuntingtonWhiteley. marie claire.co.za

137

agenda who, what, where, when

WE’RE INVITING OUR FAVOURITE STYLISH, IN-THE-KNOW, GO-TO PEOPLE TO COMPILE THE AGENDA SECTION EVERY MONTH AND SPILL THEIR LIFESTYLE SECRETS. THIS ISSUE, MEET ONE OF THE TRENDIEST WOMEN-INTHE-KNOW, JENNA MCARTHUR

f

ashion has ignited my interest in food, travel, pop culture, film, music and people. After six years in the fashion and media industries, the transition to fashion and lifestyle PR was an obvious one. My love affair with it culminated in the launch of my PR company in 2013, where I’m able to create and build communities around fashion, lifestyle and luxury brands both on- and offline. Working with emerging talent, established brands, connecting with young creatives and giving homegrown fashion brands a voice is what makes me tick. Discovering new hotspots, rediscovering old ones and keeping my finger on the pulse is synonymous with my nine-to-five, and my blog, Jennamcarthur.com, is where I document what I see and love.

THRILLING READING



THE CIRCLE by Dave Eggers



S. by J. J. Abrams and Doug Dorst

Eggers introduces us to an alternative world where privacy and secrecy are not allowed, and forces us to question where our own privacy laws are going. (R342) Follow the anonymous conversation that unfolds after a young woman picks up a book, left behind by a stranger, filled with his margin notes, which reveal a reader entranced by the story and its author. Making notes of her own, she responds and leaves the book for the stranger to find. (R442) THE INVENTION OF WINGS by Sue Monk Kidd Told from the two vastly 

different perspectives of slave owner, Sarah Grimke, and her slave, Hetty, Kidd’s latest novel is multidimensional. It’s a seamless blend of history and fiction that will keep you engrossed from beginning to end. (R392) 

LITTLE FAILURE by Gary Shteyngart

A memoir about a Russian Jew and his immigration to America, Shteyngart’s latest novel will make you giggle at times and have you brushing away tears at others. (R392)

b ef o

re y o u h ea d o u v is i t t M a ri e c l a i r

t o fi nd e. c o. o u y ou h s h t w hi c e v z a o ul d en t s t hi s m a tt e n d on t h .

Photographs from Jenna McArthur’s Instagram feed.

POP IN PRESENTSPACE Featuring some

of the top South African designers in homeware, accessories and gifts, this pop-up shop in the Lifestyle Centre on Kloof Street has everything you might need to make a house a home. 50 Kloof Street, Cape Town

138


agenda mc THERE’S SOMETHING ABOUT A GROUP OF GUYS WITH INSTRUMENTS THAT WE CAN’T GET ENOUGH OF AND THESE LATEST RELEASES HAVE GOT US READY TO JUMP AROUND

BANDS that make us

FOSTER THE PEOPLE –

BAND OF SKULLS –

KAISER CHIEFS –

SUPERMODEL

HIMALAYAN

The second album from the American indie-pop rockers of ‘Pumped Up Kicks’ fame is said to be much more guitar-driven than what they’ve brought out before. Focused on the themes of consumerism and the ‘ugly side of capitalism’, it seems the boys are set to bring us something new.

A follow-up to their second album, Sweet Sour , the band who toured to South Africa in 2012 has released singles ‘Be Mine’ and ‘Asleep at the Wheel’ that are filled with a mix of explosive rock and rich harmonies that we love.

EDUCATION, EDUCATION, EDUCATION & WAR

dance

FIVE MINUTES WITH DJ KHENZERO

WE CAUGHT UP WITH ONE OF THE MOST RECOGNIZED NAMES IN SOUTH AFRICAN MUSIC CIRCLES TO FIND OUT JUST WHAT MAKES DJ KHENZERO TICK

How did you get onto the SA music scene? In the late ‘90s

some friends and I found a gap in the club scene – I’ve been doing my own events/gigs since then. Which artists inspire you? DJ Spinna and Gilles Peterson. Your best part about DJ-ing? Seeing people losing themselves on the dance floor. Your top summer songs? ‘Be Free’ – Moonchild, ‘Better Off’ – Quadron ft Kendrick Lamar, ‘Nakamarra’ – Haitus Kaiyote. The soundtrack to your life? ‘Dream of a Lifetime’ – Marvin Gaye.

SIP ON THIS

Witchery & Mimco at Woolworths

It feels like years since we were belting out ‘Ruby! Ruby! Ruby! Ruby!’ and now the post-punks from Leeds bring us their fifth studio album – their first since drummer and lead songwriter Nick Hodgson left the band last year. The band’s first single, ‘Misery Company’ is a bit darker than you may be used to, but we’re excited.

BAROMETER Stop to spot these trends on the rise (and fall)

After bringing us Country Road and Trenery,Woolworths now welcomes iconic Australian brands Witchery and Mimco to SA shores. Witchery, founded in the ‘70s, is racy, edgy and feminine – offering ontrend and fashion-forward collections that could be right at home on ready-to-wear runways worldwide. Mimco is a brand of original accessories and statement pieces to complement any outfit – perfect for adding the right touch of glamour to an everyday look. With base tones of black, off-grey and neutrals and textures of soft leather and chunky knits,Witchery has everything you need to give your winter wardrobe a breath of fresh air.

GOING UP Durban South Africa’s

second-biggest coastal city, but frequently underrated, is improving its beach-front appeal after refurbishing the Tsogo Sun’s Southern Sun Elangeni & Maharani. The now 734-bedroom hotel complex has 11 restaurants and bars each with a different theme in design and cuisine. Our favourite is the Panorama Bar & Pool Deck, where you can munch and sip on refreshments all day long while enjoying views of Durban’s Golden Mile. Tsogosun.com

Wearable tech From

Google’s acclaimed glasses (featuring a camera and screen worn on the face) to the release of the smart watch, which syncs to your smartphone and alerts users of incoming calls, text messages, Twitter notifications and even monitors your health – it looks like wearable tech is set to hit the mainstream this year.

THE BEST SPOTS FOR A CAFFEINE FIX

Snack ‘n’ sip parties

BOOTLEGGER COFFEE COMPANY is the new kid

THE FACTORY CAFE,

THE HOUSE OF MACHINES is an eatery-

inside Colombo Coffee & Tea on the Sea Point block. Even roastery in Durban, may not bikeshop-bar.Enjoy delicious with a great vibe for breakfast, be new but it’s certainly treats from Jason and Frankie all-day tapas and being the a must-visit coffee destination. Fenner, get your caffeine fix Fresh, roasted craft coffee and from Evil Twin Coffee shop, or perfect stop for drinks after work, it’s still the coffee that free Wi-Fi make for the perfect grab a drink at their Prohibition will keep you coming back. 39- office away from the office. Bar. For the boys, there’s the bike shop plus menswear to 41 Regent Road, Sea Point, 369 Gale Street, Magwaza buy. 84 Shortmarket Street, Cape Town, 021-434-0060 Maphalala, Durban, 031-205-3283, Factorycafe.co.za

Cape Town, 021-426-1400, Thehouseofmachines.com

3 G 1 R 0 E 2 B R N E E T M S R M Ü F U S / N G O N V I R E P N S A I D

Forget tables laden with dishes, cutlery and crockery. Grab a glass and some finger food and dance the night away à la Michelle Obama’s 50th birthday celebrations.

GOING DOWN Working nine to five More

and more people are checking out of the rat race and start-ups are on the rise. People are looking for things that make them happy and businesses that embrace flexi-time!

Flatforms and wedge sneakers are out! Flats are in. Hate-reading If that blog

makes your blood boil, or that Twitter feed makes you want to tear your hair out – stop reading! marieclaire.co.za

139

mc agenda

M S O E E O A Directed by Olivier Dahan S R and starring Nicole Kidman, T V we take another magical V S trip into the life of the A movie star-cum-princess U that enchanted the world. V M Starring Colin Farrell and Russell N Crowe, expect a beautiful E story with a sci-fi twist. E Scarlett R Johansson’s voice, Joaquin Phoenix and an C impossible love affair – bring your tissues. S A story about a runaway R convict and the profound E impact he has on a mother and her son. Expect drama V L – the kind that ties your I emotions in a knot and puts your mind in a spin. S OH, SHOP IT! DATES TO DIARIZE MOVIES THAT WILL MAKE YOU…

…DAYDREAM ABOUT YOUR LIFE AS A PRINCESS GRACE OF MONACO

…WISH YOUR PARTNER HAD AN IRISH ACCENT WINTER’S TALE

…GIVE SIRI A SECOND THOUGHT HER

…LOVE KATE WINSLET EVEN MORE LABOR DAY

What car would you drive if your were a glittering, albeit blood-deprived, vampire? It’s not a punchline, it’s a Volvo. The vampires may be immortal, the rest of us not so much, and so the newly refurbished Volvo XC60 has come to prolong our lives in the most mollycoddled environment possible. No wonder, then, that Edward and his kin have given up feeding on humans – this is all very next-level sophistication and I, for one, feel all that nuzzling in the trough of human platelets is very, very old school. ROBOT FLIRTATION: 6/10 You are hovering well above the masses in the XC60 and may be identified as someone’s mom, so expect ‘MILF’ action. However, those in the vampiric inner circle will be totally onto you, so you might find yourself batting away the immortals. DANGER FREE: 10/10 Your life expectancy has been

NOTHING BEATS THE CONVENIENCE OF THE RISE OF E-COMMERCE. THESE ARE SOME OF MY FAVOURITE ONLINE-SHOPPING STOPS KISUA New online emporium Kisua

supports, promotes and showcases emerging African designers and is the first African e-commerce site of its kind. If you love print and pattern then this one’s for you.The Kisua African Designer Fund provides financial support to the designers’ businesses and a look into Africa’s creative community. Kisua.com SOUTH AFRICAN MARKET (SAM)

A one-stop shop for local jewellery,fashion, décor, stationery and design. Visit their site to learn more about each designer and click to have your favourite picks delivered to you (if you’re in Cape Town, it’s free!). Find SAM at the corner of Longmarket and Bree streets, Cape Town. Ilovesam.co.za JANE SEWS Embracing the world of artisan clothing, Durban-based Jane Sews offers easy-to-wear and feminine pieces available online. If beautifully crafted, clean lines and minimal pieces are your thing, then Jane Sews is for you. With free delivery within SA on all orders over R500, it’s finely crafted shopping-experience perfection. Janesews.co.za

extended exponentially by the Scandinavians. For example, new cornering lights work with the active bending lights to basically follow your steering, and work brilliantly when reversing. And the new Cross Traffic Alert system warns the driver of vehicles approaching from the back and picks up traffic up to 30 metres away. COMFORT ZONE: 9/10 The new ‘urban’ design is all about streamlined exteriors and fancy wood panelling. Expect heated seats, little informative screens and boot space to rival a trailer. THE SCHUMI FACTOR: 7/10 You can choose to customize your XC60 with a sports seat and this is telling. Corner Traction Control helps when you want to deploy your vehicle like a pro, and the All Wheel Drive and Hill Descent Control are brilliant when straddling a dune, as one does. PRICING: From R460 000

VEUVE CLICQUOT MASTERS POLO 2014 It’s time to don your fanciest frocks and fascinators while sipping on the finest bubbly and indulging in the sport of kings. The breathtaking Val de Vie Estate plays host to the fourth annual Veuve Clicquot Masters Cape Town Polo event on Saturday 1 March 2014. For tickets and more details visit Valdevie.co.za. THE 15TH ANNUAL CAPE TOWN INTERNATIONAL JAZZ FESTIVAL Over 40 local and international artists perform over two days from Friday 28 March to Saturday 29 March at the Cape Town International Convention Centre. Soul singer Erykah Badu will be the headlining act for this year’s edition. We can’t wait! Book at Computicket.co.za.

stockists A-List 021-422-4844

Adriaan Kuiters + Jody Paulsen

021-424-5502 Afraid of Mice 021-423-7353 Albertus Swanepoel 011-327-1540 Black Coffee 011-482-9148 Burberry 011-325-5923; 021-425-8933 Castelo 011-883-8767 Catheryne Gaeyla 011-447-2550 Clive Rundle 011-880-3839 Democratic Republic 021-419-5553 Diesel 011-630-4000 Doreen Mashika 011- 327-1540 Emporio Armani 021-425-7083 Extreme Eyewear 021-425-0913 Gavin Rajah 021-424-7842/9 Glitterati 082-819-5247 Guess 011-883-8391; 021-674-0924;031-566-3282 Hugo Boss 011-884-1425; 021-418-8328 Infinite Sixty 011-684-1515 Iracema Boutique 071-405-0583 Jangi 082-777-6116; 071-512-2981 Kirsten Goss 011-447-2234; 021-424-345 Kottin & Twille 082-822-6729 LAURENCEAIRLINE

011-327-1540 Leopard Frock 011-646-8387 Loin Cloth & Ashes 072-143-2312 Louis Vuitton 011-784-9854; 021-405-9700 Lovisa 011-431-3610; 021-551-1051 Luella 021-938-1911 Luminance 011-325-4766 Madison Boutique 021-794-4447 Merchants on Long 021-422-2828 Missibaba 021-424-8127 Mr Price 011-784-8469; 021-551-4416;031-336-1333 Nailcandi 011-395-1654; Nine West 011-783-2356; 021-674-1581 Olive Green Cat 021-424-1101 Oscarina Boutique 021-423-9633 Pamela Mann 079-758-4758 Pichulik 082-449-0024 Picot & Moss 011-669-0500 Pringle 011-783-4355; 021-418-5282 Quamta 011-780-8357 Queenspark 021-460-9400 S. Bacher & Company

011-372-6000 Safilo 0861-723-456

Salvatore Ferragamo

011-783-0026

Second Time Around

021-423-1674

Stefania Morland 021-422-2609 Strut 24 073-953-9110 Studio 8 011-325-4255;

021-683-1666 Stuttafords 011-879-1000 Sunglass Hut 011-883-6606; 011-884-9950;021-418-8534 Suzaan Heyns 011-782-9895 Taibo Bacar +258-82-929-3380 Ted Baker 011-450-1156 Thalia Strates 072-731-0341 That’s It! 011-268-6674 The Lot 021-424-8812 Tiger of Sweden 011-784-0561 Topshop 011-685-7070; 021-419-5900 Truworths 021-460-2300 YDE 011-510-0500 Zara 011-302-1500; 021-446-8700; 031-536-6440

COMPETITION RULES 1 Each SMS costs R1,50 across all networks. 2 Prizes will go to the first correct entries chosen at random by means of a random-number generator. 3 The judges’ decision

is final and no correspondence will be entered into. 4 Readers may SMS as many entries as they wish. 5 The winners will be notified a nd their names will be published. 6 Staff members of Associated Media Publishing, the prize sponsors, their advertising agencies and immediate families may not enter. 7 Prizes are not transferable and may not be converted into cash. 8 By entering via SMS you are giving Associated Media Publishing permission to contact you in future via this medium. 9 Closing date is 31 March 2014. 10 Winners must reside in South Africa.

DECEMBER WINNERS Thirty-nine pairs of Nine West sunglasses Winners have be en notified. American Swiss tennis bracelet Glynis Wimpey, Centurion.

140


S E V L A S N O G A L E I R B A G N O I T A R T S U L L I D E I L P P U S D N A M O C . E E R T X A M I , S O T O H P K C O T S K N I H T / S E G A M I O L L A G S H P A R G O T O H P S E G O V N E R U A L D N A O L A M U K E L E N A Z , N A M P O O K H A R A S S R O T U B I T R N O C

life story mc

THE

QUEEN OF VIVIENNE WESTWOOD (��

)

SHE STROLLS INTO BUCKINGHAM PALACE, ALL FLAMING-RED HAIR, SANS KNICKERS. SHE BITCHES ABOUT KATE MIDDLETON AND CONSUMERISM. THE GRANDE DAME OF THE NEW WAVE HAS BEEN SHOCKING US FOR DECADES BUT SHE’S ALSO BECOME ONE OF OUR MOST IMPORTANT FASHION DESIGNERS AND OUTSPOKEN ACTIVISTS

s ‘

WORDS EMILIE GAMBADE

he’s spiteful, opinionated, bitchy, self-indulgent... And that’s the nicest thing I can say about her,’ said John Lydon, a.k.a. Johnny Rotten, the lead singer of the Sex Pistols. During her long career, Vivienne Westwood has been loved, hated, despised, admired and adored. The 72-year-old fashion designer, who once said that she was ‘the only punk left, actually’, is the living – and today, slightly less provocative – symbol of a time where being obscene and a firebrand was en vogue and pretty much de rigueur . Westwood is not just the emblem of a lost world; she is also what The Guardian ’s Stuart Jeffries called a ‘jauntily knickerless recipient of an OBE from the Queen’, red hair topping up her audacious self, and an influential designer whose garments have been shaping trends, moods and a new generation of talented hands for almost 40 years. Back in the late ‘70s, England’s economy was suffering from what many would describe as clinical depression and the government was out of touch and out of ideas. The working class was angry, tired and often poor, the harsh climate made worse by a garbage strike that turned London into a giant trash bin. In this desolate setting, Westwood planted the grains of her revolution. A few years before the surfacing of the punk ethos, she had started to design some trendy ‘Teddy Boy’ items (think dapper style, creeper socks, shiny shirts and waistcoats and, yes, bolo ties) for her partner Malcolm McLaren – then still to

Top to bottom

Designer Vivienne Westwood walks on the Vivienne Westwood Red Label Spring/ Summer 2013 catwalk during London Fashion Week, at the British Foreign & Commonwealth Office in London, September 2012; Vivienne Westwood Autumn/ Winter 2013/14 Paris collection.

‘When we started to do punk, we put all of these things together to create the look of an urban guerrilla – a rebel’ marieclaire.co.za

141

become British musician and impresario – and his Let It Rock shop opened in 1971 at 430 King’s Road in Chelsea. By 1974, the boutique, which had been renamed Sex, was an Ali Baba cavern for bondage and fetish garments, a punk (the word was apparently used in the late 16th century as a synonym for prostitute) haven where ripped shirts, rubber cropped tops and leather jackets sported safety pins, ‘Destroy’ slogans and razor blades, and where chunky biker boots bore spikes like the symbols of some much-wanted iconoclasm. The store, which changed fashion direction and names several times, soon served as a hangout for all the left-behinds, disenchanted and antagonistic teenagers, among them, John Lydon. Westwood claims she dressed the Sex Pistols (the band’s name is derived from the store) but Lydon counters this saying he dressed himself in garbage bags and a Pink Floyd T-shirt emblazoned with ‘I hate’. In an interview for Style.com, Westwood explained, ‘When we started to do punk, we put all of these things together to create the look of an urban guerrilla – a rebel.’ She elaborated in The Guardian in December 2011, telling Jeffries, ‘(…) I really wanted to help. I was interested in human rights.’ She started to be anti the royal family because she felt the Queen was a symbol of hypocrisy at the time. The making of the infamous punk-rock band behind ‘Anarchy in the UK’ and ‘God Save the Queen’, still stirs wild controversy: McLaren (who passed away in 2010) and Westwood claimed the band and its iconic style as theirs while Lydon maintains that ‘no-one created [him]’. During the 26 months of its short existence, the Sex Pistols became the voice of a dismayed generation and was as equally adored as despised: when the brand embarked on its 1976 tour, Bernard Brook-Partridge, a Conservative member of the Greater London Council, famously said: ‘I think that most of these groups would be vastly improved by sudden death. The worst group (...) the Sex Pistols (...) are the antithesis of human kind and the whole world would be vastly improved by their total utter non-existence.’ Still, what they accomplished was nothing short of a revolution; their following was vast, as was the number of bands that sprung in their wake. And Westwood became one of the most prominent British designers in the contemporary world, whether it was because of her unique eye, the Pistols’ controversy that surrounded her, or a wild combustion of both – quite a ride for someone who started as a primary-school teacher. Born on 8 April 1941 in Derbyshire, Vivienne Isabel Swire moved to Middlesex with her parents at the age of 17, and enrolled to train as a teacher.Of her childhood,Westwood says: ‘I was a good person. I was high-spirited but I was a big reader. What I remember as a child is that other kids didn’t care about suffering. I always did.’ In 1962, she met Derek Westwood, a commercial airline pilot. The couple wed the following July and had a son, Benjamin, now an erotic and fetishist photographer and fashion designer.The marriage ended three

This spread, clockwise from top left Westwood’s son

Jo Corré at the New Connaught Rooms in London, December 2000; Westwood with Malcolm McLaren in 1981; posing for photographer Juergen Teller as part of an exhibition called Men and Women ; with Baroness Margaret Thatcher at the Vivienne Westwood exhibition at the Museum of London, April 2000; at the anti-fracking protest at the Cuadrilla fracking site in Sussex, England, August 2013; investitures at Buckingham Palace, London, June 2006; Steve Jones, Alan Jones, Chrissie Hynde, Jordan Pamela Rooke, Vivienne Westwood and friend at Sex on King’s Road, London, 1976.

‘If you wear clothes that don’t suit you, you’re a fashion victim. You have to wear clothes that make you look better’

142


years later when Vivienne met 18-year-old McLaren. In 1967, they had a child together (today’s Agent Provocateur creator Joseph Corré), propelling the punk movement from their shop, until the collapse of the Sex Pistols. In 1980, quite symbolically, the shop was renamed World’s End. Following the end of an era and before separating in 1984, the couple focused on organizing its first catwalk show – for the Pirate collection – launching the post-punk new-romantic tenet that would later be so synonymous with the Westwood brand.

life story mc DESIGNERS’ MUSICIAN MUSES VIVIENNE WESTWOOD AND THE SEX PISTOLS In 1975, the

famous punk-rock band was formed under the management of Westwood’s partner, Malcolm McLaren. The band’s particular style – a mix between bondage, fetishism and ripped clothes – was rooted in the early hippy culture and was mainly designed by Westwood. JEAN PAUL GAULTIER AND MADONNA Gaultier admitted that

he was always a fan of Madonna, hoping he would, one day, design her costumes. At her 1990 Blond Ambition Tour, Madonna sported his iconic cone bra, sold in December 2012 for $52 000 (over R520 000) at the Christie’s Pop Culture auction in London. GUCCI AND FLORENCE WELCH

It was an instant love affair between Gucci’s Creative Director, Frida Giannini, and singer Florence Welch.The brand designed Welch’s North America Tour in 2011 and again, in 2012, for the Florence + the Machine Ceremonials Tour. Giannini explained in an interview with Dazed Digital, ‘I met her in Los Angeles at this year’s Grammys and was captivated by her presence. She has a powerful personality and an entrancing quality to her performances. She also has that confident and selfassured look that goes hand in hand with the Gucci woman.’ M O C . E E R T X A M I D N A S E R U T A E F X E R , S E G A M I Y T T E G / S E G A M I O L L A G / E L O M R E T T A C H T E R A G S H P A R G O T O H P

There is something remarkably exuberant in Westwood’s persona and aesthetics. Not everybody can walk into Buckingham Palace, twice, wearing no underwear – once to receive the Order of the British Empire (in 1992), in a long, grey tailored dress and a matching side béret (Westwood famously twirled in the Palace courtyard, exposing her knickerless self); and a second time to be made Dame Commander of the British Empire (in 2006), in a black dress, a pair of black mules with riveted metal holes and tiny silver horns perched on her

head. Besides being honoured by the Queen, Westwood’s startling signature has her fans come to her for outfits that are both recognizable and unique: Sex and the City ’s costume designer Patricia Field, chose an extravagant wedding dress for Carrie Bradshaw; Princess Eugenie wore an outlandish outfit at the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge’s royal wedding in 2011. Other accolades include a retrospective in 2004 at the Victoria & Albert Museum after 34 years in fashion and, most recently, in Spring 2013, her designs were included in the PUNK: Chaos to Couture exhibition at The Met in New York. Today, she has become something of a brilliant fashion historicist, colouring her collections with reflections from the past, from medieval costumes or the paintings of Thomas Gainsborough to detailed underdresses from the Renaissance, all the way through to her famous 1985 tailored cottonand-tweed ‘mini crini’, a miniature version of the crinoline. She plays with crafty and technical cuts, pleats like delicate origami, a collection mixed and bandaged with bits of trash that sometimes turn it into a random medley. And her designs still manage to enhance the woman’s body: ‘If you wear clothes that don’t suit you, you’re a fashion victim. You have to wear clothes that make you look better,’ she once said. In 1994, Westwood created faux cul skirts with exaggerated postérieurs that made legs look longer and the waist look smaller. On this, Vogue ’s Anna Wintour said, ‘We all laughed the first time we saw crinolines. But it’s good that someone refuses to be all pale and beige and cashmere.’ Westwood’s refusal to toe the line would always colour her politics as well. Once quoted as saying she still felt the world was ‘run by psychopaths’, she appeared on the cover of Tatler in 1989 dressed as Margaret Thatcher with ‘This woman was once punk’ as a cover line. She is also an activist, regularly speaking up about climate change and environmental issues. In 2011, she told The Guardian , ‘I will say something that sounds terrible. We’re all going into the gas chamber, and what I’m saying is that it’s not a bathroom. We’re going to be killed. The human race faces mass extinction,’ adding, ‘We have got to change our ethics and our financial system and our whole way of understanding the world. It has to be a world in which people live rather than die; a sustainable world. It could be great.’ To support her arguments, Westwood wrote a proposal dubbed ‘Active Resistance to Propaganda’, alerting humankind to the risk of ‘muddling along as usual’, remaining ‘the destructive and self-destroying animal, the victim of our own cleverness’. She is also a fervent supporter of WikiLeaks’ Julian Assange and a vocal critic of Kate Middleton (not that the two have anything in common). Of the latter she said – apparently after Middleton went to Alexander McQueen’s Sarah Burton for her wedding dress – ‘I think she’s got a problem with eye make-up. The sharp line around her eyes makes her look hard. Either she should be smudgy or wear none.’ Today, all that’s left of dinosaurs are birds; and all that remains of the punk movement is Vivienne Westwood. At 72, she married Andreas Kronthaler, a former student and 24 years her junior, and continues on a path paved with both awards and controversies. God save Westwood! marieclaire.co.za

143

mc this

much i know

ROBYN LAWLEY ‘PLUS-SIZE’ MODEL, FOODIE, ��

I’ve got big hips and a big body. I’m double, triple the

size of other models and I embrace that – I own it. I don’t feel pressure to lose weight as I’ve been this size for years now and I don’t want to change or diet. I’m normal size. I wish we could all be known as models, rather than ‘plus size’. Being a plus-size model in an industry where there aren’t many, means there are some opportunities I wouldn’t have had otherwise. But there are also fewer

jobs available, particularly in mainstream and high-end fashion. There’s a sense of,‘Oh, she won’t expect as much money.’ I am not accepting that. People are surprised when I turn up on a shoot and I can model. But why shouldn’t I be able to do it just because I’m a size 16? Plus-size models are being used more in magazines and in the media but not on the runway. I’d love them

to use more curvy girls but it’s like a taboo and I don’t know why. It screams lack of diversity. We need a range of ages and ethnicities. There are just very thin, white, 16-year-old girls on the catwalk and that has to change. It doesn’t send out a good message to teenage girls who are impressionable.

‘I’m normal size. I wish we could all be known as models, rather than ‘‘plus size’’’

144


I once heard anorexia was ‘the look’ of the season.

What message is that sending to young women? They’re not coat hangers; they are girls and it’s bad for them to only see skinny frames on the catwalk. I hope I can be a strong role model for them but there aren’t enough of us plus-size models. I’d like for magazines to go Photoshop-free in the most extreme ways they use it. The images are so

unrealistic. Girls have enough to deal with when they’re teenagers without that. I have girls as young as 12 writing to me with such body hate, which can distract a girl from achieving what she should. I wish those publications could focus on women scientists and soldiers. Curves don’t epitomize a woman. People use me as a figurehead, and to me that misses the point and is blatantly offensive to thin women – my sister, for one.

Saying ‘skinny is ugly’ should be no more acceptable than saying fat is. I find all this stuff a very controlling and effective way of making women obsess over their weight, instead of exploiting their more important attributes, such as intellect, strength and power. We’re too busy being told we’re not thin enough or curvy enough. We’re holding ourselves back. I’ve always worked, from the age of 13, because I was desperate to earn my own money. Seeing how little my

dad [a fireman] was paid for what is a hero’s job made me want more from life. I didn’t like the idea of being dependent on anybody. I wanted to be self-sufficient. Of course, my parents encouraged that. If I hadn’t gone into modelling, I would have been a chef. As a child, I helped my mum bake cakes and learnt

recipes from her 1960s cookbook. I made lemon-meringue pies at [age] 10 because my grandma loved them. I’ve done a pilot for a cooking show in Australia, and would like to write cookbooks. My boyfriend suggested I should write a food blog. He came up with the idea after I’d made a vegetable bake with Brie in the middle. In my tiny New York kitchen, I cook something and then photograph it. My favourite dish to make is mulberry tart. I can only make it in Australia with fruit from my mom’s tree. It takes seven hours to make; it’s a lot of work but it’s delicious. My boyfriend is my number-one fan. He doesn’t understand the headlines about plus size; to him, I’ve got the greatest body alive. He helps me; he says, ‘All I want is for you to be confident, because you’re beautiful when you’re confident.’ People think, ‘Oh, if I lost 10 kilograms life would be so much better.’ Actually, it’s not better; it’s worse, because

then you struggle to keep the weight off. I have a personal trainer; I’m a good, healthy weight. I eat like a normal person, indulge occasionally, but never eat fast food. If you feel guilty about food, it stops you from being in the moment. I love food. I don’t hold back from eating what

I want. I just make sure it’s portion controlled.

U A . M O C . Q G D N A K U . O C . L I A M Y L I A D E H T , M O C . T S O P N O T G N I F F U H , M O C . N A I D R A U G E H T , K U . O C . S E M I T E H T S E C R U O S F O O R A M H A F E E H T A N N O I T A R T S U L L I E S L E R A C E E M I A Y B D E L I P M O C

VO2842B

THE Issue: Fashion forecast

Recommend Documents