Articulations

"I haven’t seen anything that isn’t either pleasing or funny on that website."

THE SUMMER DAY

Who made the world?

Who made the swan, and the black bear?

Who made the grasshopper?

This grasshopper, I mean—

the one who has flung herself out of the grass,

the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,

who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down—

who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.

Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.

Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.

I don’t know exactly what a prayer is.

I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down

into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,

how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,

which is what I have been doing all day.

Tell me, what else should I have done?

Doesn’t everything die at last, and too soon?

Tell me, what is it you plan to do

with your one wild and precious life?

Mary Oliver in New and Selected Poems

Song: “The Origin of Love” by Neil Patrick Harris (Hedwig and the Angry Inch Original Broadway Cast Recording)

Namibia’s Hipsters: From the sapeurs of Kinshasa, the fashionistas of Lagos and to the streets of Jozi, vintage style is trending in Africa.   

Designer, tailor and stylist Lourens Loux Gebhardt of Loux the Vintage Guru is now collaborating with Khumbala, a group of stylists and designers from Johannesburg, to launch a street-style website that seeks to inspire Africans to step out in style and introduce them to the merits of vintage fashion.

A fashion revolution in the making; “When we collaborate we call ourselves LIA (Love is African), and we’re currently playing a big part by simply inspiring fashionistas around the African continent.”

Usually decked out in well-cut 60’s suits, tweed jackets, round spectacles and trilby hats, Lourens explains, “Many people aren’t interested in wearing vintage, they just see it as used clothing… I manage to dress myself cheaply and end up looking like a million bucks.”

photos: ©Harness Hamese and ©Lukas Amakali. all rights reserved