Ode to the little black dress

We all know the Iconic little black dress, most of us have at least one in our closet for a night out or a special event. Little Black Dress and purples or little black dress with Doc Martens, depending on your look, we love it and you in it.

Dress from YouMeWe

So one of my best friends (I have 5 of them), is getting married and wants the bridesmaids to wear black dresses, this caused the great, oh wow I don't have a black dress anymore that fits moment. This week is the pop up shop of SAFashion week, Clara will tell you more about it. We went and walked around just to see the dresses and whats new and hot. I found myself obsessed with their dresses and the prices are really good for what you get. Best part, they do custom tailor dresses to any body shape and size, no diets needed.

What I am happy about is their two main deigns for dresses are multi purpose, the way you tie it or the way you wrap it changes them from tops, skirts to dresses, the one has 12 ways to tie it and the one in the picture has 8. So basically you have a black or any amazing print you want, item of clothing that fills a huge gap in your cupboard without taking a lot of space.

If you want, you can contact the girls behind YouMeWe and go to a wonderful day in their studio trying on dresses and giggling while figuring an outfit out.
Hopefully we will be posting a lot more about them in the near future.

How to contact them:
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Website

Please note this was not a Sponsored Post.

Happy dress shopping,
Chandré

Green Beans and Coffee, I say I am

Sometimes amazing artists walk with flair and an in your face attitude of I am so amazing that you should bow down and kiss my feet. John Robbertse does not do this, he is great, on the verge of becoming famous and yet walks with a quiet humbleness and openness about him that is far greater than his amazing art.



So Clara (The Ginger) and I, did a quick and easy interview with him. Well how hard could five questions be?

1. The ice-breaker or calm down question of ours, if you could chose would you rather hug an honey badger or a grizzly bear?

Honey Badger [I did a happy dance in my seat about this ( Honey badger 2-Grizzly bear 3)] because
you can cradle it like a baby.

2. What is currently your biggest inspiration?

There was a few seconds pause before he answered, The Sea, Van Goghs' tragic life, Dali and fairy tales. The eccentricities of how life works and (I think the most current one) his own heritage as an Afrikaans person, the culture and the society of it.

3. Tell us about Spoons:

He is fascinated by spoons and the stories they have to tell. A spoon is an object that has been used so many times and so many hands have touched them as spoons are one of the most commonly used items. he loves found objects and up-cycling by giving new life into old things, his entry to the Sasol New Signatures art competition is evidence of this (pictured above), he likes giving almost human qualities to inanimate objects, a comment about the positive and the negative parts of society.

4. Favourite medium?
"Oil paint definitely, it has such a rich history in art. it is the motherboard or mafia of all art mediums. It is the rockstar of all mediums." Which is cool since John is an amazing glass artist as well.

5. Where do you see yourself in 5 years time?
1 or 2 solo exhibitions as well as travelling around the world and hopefully lecturing art somewhere.

If you want to get a hold of John, he is on facebook. We will be following him and hopefully having more to do with him in the future.

Art in the Capital City

My home town, Pretoria, does not always seem to be a great place to live when one is an artist. Yes, I know it is the capital city, but there is something nostalgic about calling it a town. Artist André Naudé once told me that he sees Pretoria as still being a “dorp”. How will the Jacaranda city respond to Cape Town being the 2014 design capital of the world?

The answer is an initiative called The Cool Capital 2014 Biennale. It is described on the official website, www.coolcapital.co.za, as “the world’s first uncurated, DIY, guerrilla biennale: a place for citizens of the Capital City to collectively contemplate and express why we love our City and how we can improve it”. For someone who really loves Pretoria I think this is an amazing concept and a chance to show the country what we have to offer in terms of not only visual arts, but performing arts as well. From 29 August to 15 November Pretoria will showcase what the city has to offer in terms of art, architecture, design, film and music.

Not only do I support Cool Capital 2014, I am very proud to say that I will be an active part of it. Keep 1 November open as we will be having a fashion show at St. Lorient Fashion and Art Gallery. The show will be collaboration between fine artists, fashion designers and textile designers from Pretoria. It works as follows: the artist will choose one of their works, in any medium and hand it over to a team of fashion designers and a textile designer. The team will interpret the work and create a garment and hand printed fabric based on their understanding of the artwork. The resulting garments will be showcased in an event at the gallery on 1 November. The garments, along with the artwork will then remain on display for three weeks.

Artists taking part in the collaboration are André Naudé, Celia de Villiers, Tommy Motswai, Petro Neal, Anton Smit, Thelma van Rensburg, Gwenneth Miller, Tanisha Bhana, Gordon Froud and Michaela Janse van Vuuren. To view their work, visit www.art.co.za.  The two artists that I will be working with for the show are Thelma van Rensburg and Gwenneth Miller.

Hope to see you there!

Peace and love

Clara

PS: Biennale refers to an event taking place every second year. Here’s hoping to participate again in 2016 and a successful 2014.

PPS: St. Lorient Fashion and Art Gallery’s address is 492, Fehrsen Street, Brooklyn Circle, Brooklyn, Pretoria and readers can visit their website at www.stlorient.co.za .