dancingthroughchaos

‘A man becomes the creature of his uniform’ – Napoleon Bonaparte

Don’t hold your breath, but I think I may have ‘made it’ into the ranks of true Capetonians.  It didn’t involve a ceremony, an exam or even a review of my strange, sliding accent; just the simple acquisition of a coat.  Perhaps it’s more of a jacket; I definitely won’t be calling it an anorak – they don’t exist here, thank goodness; after all, they’re just a sad shadow of the 1970’s car crash of fashion as far as I’m concerned.

With winter storms still rolling up from the Antarctic, there’s been a significant chill in the air and some promising rain, from which the dams are showing signs of tentative recovery.  That’s great, but I’ve started to feel the cold.  It’s all relative, I know; maybe my blood has thinned down here,  but cold is cold and I’m not a fan.  Time to abandon sweatshirts and scarves, bite the bullet and buy a coat that actually does the job.

But, here’s the thing: everyone has already bought them; I’m serious.  And by ‘them’, I mean the ones that actually do what they’re supposed to do because they’re cunningly filled with down feathers that softly hug you in a non-suffocating way.  I was tempted into a shop to check out these coveted items back in May, and was faced by an array of colours which made decision making almost impossible.  Besides, it was still reasonably warm.  Now, months later, the place has been stripped leaving the old Henry Ford choice of, ‘any colour so long as it’s black’.  Black it is then.

There were about 5 other people in the shop at the time and they were all buying exactly the same product.  Good job I didn’t leave it any longer.  My hope that a convenient sale bargain would come along was dashed to pieces, but hey, it’s an investment, right?  And, it’s a great coat/jacket/wind-cheater, whatever; light as a feather – for obvious reasons; squashes down into a tiny bag – brilliant for travelling (and we have a major trip coming up soon).  Yay!  Pockets – double yay!  (Why does anyone design anything without pockets?  I could have done with a couple in my wedding dress if memory serves… )  A zip that actually zips – be honest, they don’t always; and a garment that doesn’t make me look as though I’m being attacked by a sleeping bag – #winningatlife.

The trouble is that, because everyone is wearing these things, should you enter the comparative warmth of a mall, coffee shop or home, and shed your outer wear for a while, the chances of mistaking someone else’s for yours when you leave again, is massive.  Sure, there are a few knock-offs around and the odd fancy one with a particular brand name that meant the purchaser paid four times the price (suckers), but basically, they’re interchangeable.  This is, without doubt the 2018 Cape Town uniform and I, my friends, am ‘in’.

Meanwhile, in the northern hemisphere thousands of people are currently buying their own type of uniforms, of the school variety, in readiness for the start of another school year.  I’ve already seen one little chap in the kind of shiny, grown up shoes you expect to see on accountants and professionals, and a pair of giant not-so-shorts which should see him through ’til graduation.  Bless.  Uniform is such a helpful thing for those school years.  The parents just recycle the same stuff through the age ranges until it falls apart; the children don’t have to navigate the perilous consequences of choosing what to wear each day; no one can pull rank in the playground by having more exclusive clothing than anyone else and despite the alarming effects of yogurt and PVA glue on a school sweatshirt (trust me on this; it will happen), the general consensus is that it serves as a great leveller.  Napoleon seemed to think so.

Or does it?  How did you ‘pimp’ your uniform back in the day?  How many times did you turn over that skirt waistband to hitch it up a few inches in the hope of looking more à la mode and less à  l’Aunt Maud?  What about your school tie?  Did it mysteriously vanish altogether, get worn as a belt, on the wrist perhaps, shortened to the point of ludicrous?  My kids adapted their jumpers and sweatshirts with strategically placed holes (my, how that hurt my frugal heart), to insert their thumbs, and thus extend the sleeves as makeshift gloves.  I spent years trying to get away with wearing trainers myself, rather than the hideous clod-hoppers my parents felt were appropriate scholastic footwear; sometimes it worked.  I flatly refused to wear cardigans – I think I had some kind of button phobia – and consequently my school photos were never quite the portraits of smartness that my contemporaries took home.  Even when you’re one of the crowd, there’s something inside us that yearns to be at least a little bit different; to stand out a just a bit.

So here I am, clad in new, cosy Capetonian uniform yet yearning to tweak it just a little… My compromise is the addition of a green ribbon threaded around the inner hanging hook to distinguish it from its duller contemporaries.  Pretty radical, right?  Oh the dilemmas of fitting in, yet standing out; conforming just a little, but maintaining that individual spark which makes life, and people so interesting.  Clearly, I’m not just talking about coats.  Outward garb bears only a shadowy resemblance, if that, to what lies on the interesting inside of a person…  Here’s to all the passionate, fire-filled world-changers who resist the urge for conspicuous fame and make a difference every day by tweaking their conformity to resist the ho-hum, embrace the avenues that lead out of comfort-zones know their significance and inspire us all.  Just stay warm while you’re doing it.