Fashion that’s relevant across all generations

Long before we obsessively stockpiled images on our phones, shared our lives on Facebook, filtered them on Instagram and had family WhatsApp groups, there existed solid family albums. Inside them forever live our tiny, chubby selves in embarrassing situations like soapy bathtubs, gummy grins, older sibling holding younger sibling with an awestruck look and black-and-white family portraits on telltale checkered studio floors.

 My favourite pictures were my parents’. Young, promising and in full colour. My mother with her epic Tina Turner legs, stockinged, with compact heels and never a hem dropping below her knee, which was great because it pretty much ensured the one fight she and I will never have is that my clothes are too short. My dad with his cool shades, bell bottoms and manly insouciance, arm draped casually yet possessively across his wife’s shoulders, looking for all the world like he walked straight off the set of a blaxploitation movie.

FASHION STATEMENTS

One glorious image captures my mum standing alone, in patent crimson wedges and a floral dress brushing ever so lightly against her thighs. My sister and I loved that picture. We stared at it for hours. We also both wanted that dress badly. My mother, beautiful, on the brink of demure except not, independent, making fashion statements years before any of us were born. It dictated a life she had that none of us, my siblings and I, were privy to or a part of. A woman who, at least in the pictures, is in her prime. We tease her about these pictures. About her penchant for minis. Her defence, everyone was wearing them. Let the eye rolling begin.

It made me wonder about my imaginary daughter. Whatever will she think when we flip through my Instagram or Facebook? Our pictures tell stories of who we are, or were. They show progressive shifts in our lives from the moment we are born to the moment we die. Since the world is not a large nudist colony, we wear clothes. Daughters are especially sensitive to their mother’s fashion choices. Some of the most beautiful women talk about keeping their clothes in storage for their mini mes, having their daughters pick out what to wear, cute pictures of toddlers trying to walk in mummy’s expensive heels, trying on mummy’s lipstick to wearing couture just like mummy on the red carpet. Small wonder kiddie fashion is such big business.

I mentally flipped through my closet and realised my imaginary daughter is likely to fall in love with my one-of-a-kind designer pieces. Those are more likely to stand the test of time because no matter which decade, they would still be stunning, modifiable, and modern. Rather like my grandmother’s white embroidered caftan. The one I whispered in her ear she should leave to me about 15 years ago. My mum made it for her when she attended my elder brother’s graduation. Now in her 80s, she says she was born in the year of the locust which Google helpfully laid squarely in the 1920s – she still loves it. I learnt that two of her daughters have since laid claim to this dress that should be celebrating its 20th birthday.

To date, my mother’s closet is still a wonderland be it accessories, scarves, clothes or shoes. My sister and I grew up stealing, I mean, shopping from her closet and effectively ruining some of her cherished pieces. She once lent me a black patent clutch. It just so happened my Fashion Watch co-host, stylist and entrepreneur Annabel Onyango, had an identical one also from her mother. These generational pieces carry stories and history that makes them distinct and rare. They are beloved because they are part of another woman’s life story, care for across decades, lasting because of quality. I have no idea if my imaginary daughter will be a tomboy who may or may not have a size 10 foot and may or may not take to my 4 inch to 6 inch heels. I must say though it would be great to have someone inherit my black leather catsuit.

WHAT’S THE DIFFERENCE?

 Vintage: Clothing that dates back at least 20 years, or more. Belonging to another era. Original pieces with fabrics manufactured at that time, cuts, colours and textures. They look different from present day fashion. Vintage is not automatically second hand. They are sold at specialty stores. You may be lucky to find vintage at a flea market. To obtain a license to sell vintage, clothes must be at least 25 years old.

 Classic: Clothing that has withstood the test of time and still remains wearable. An example would be a black stiletto, trench coat, pencil skirt or LBD. Fit is queen. Classic clothing has it’s own silhouette that fits just right, not too tight and not too