She Wears Shwe-Shwe

Towards the end of last year I knew about two weedings that incoroporated Shwe shwe into the design and them of the weddings  -

The one was mentioned on one of my favourite local bogs - Babazeka's blog and the other was Megan who I share an office with on Fridays.

I loved hearing the build up stories to Megans wedding,  getting her dress made at the Fashion District in downtown JHB, choosing the  materials etc and seeing the gorgeous pictures afterwards.  Thanks Megan

When I started working with the Naledi Victim Support Centre I was drawn to Dineo, who with her white hair and similar shoes reminded me  so much of my  own gran. 

After I made a fuss of Violets dress a few weeks ago, Dineo came to our next meeting wearing her shwe shwe dress. 

A few weeks ago I posted the pictures of Jeanette's Springbok supporter outfit.   I passed her now in the street on my way to a meeting and she was wearing a great blue shwe shwe dress.  I didn't have too much time, or my real camera, but managed to take a quick picture of her and swop a few words while  I was stopped at the  Stop Sign 

There is a lovely story in the news today about a boy who took his grandmother to his matric farewall as a thank you for looking after him since his parents died. A lovely enough story on its own- made even more special by the dress he had made for her.    Wish we had a full length image of the dress, but from the picture I can see that its made of shwe shwe with  elaborate stitching on the bodice

Dress made for her in secret

Every time, he answered that he was taking "a very special person". He even had a dress made for her in secret.

Thulani said: "We took her measurements while she was sleeping. I gave her the dress two days before the matric farewell. Fortunately, she liked it."

My work in Naledi in Soweto is primarily with the CPF (Community Policing Forum), but I have found a happy home with the volunteers who run the Victim Empowerment Centre or Trauma centre and have been able to organise some much needed training for them. My favourite training sessions are the ones done with  the Deep Democracy team.

At this weeks training session with the Youth Desk from Naledi and the team from the Trauma Centre Violet arrived wearing the most beautiful shwe shwe outfit.  Luckily I had my camera with me  because I needed to take pictures of another  training  session that I had organised in the hall next door on Conflict Resolution and Restorative Justice with the team from Khulisa - and so I could get some photos of her beautiful outfit. 

Jeanette, who lives in Brixton and cleans for my brother one day a week had on the most amazing outfit yesterday.

I have posted about great shwe shwe finds in the little town of Clarens before and now have some more great finds to add. 

Gorgeous Tau turned one this weekend and to mark the  very special date I sewed her a shwe shwe party dress with some red shwe shwe I had at home. 

  

Here is a close up of the ricrac and the buttons. I bought the buttons a while ago in various colours. They are wooden heart shaped buttons and the blue worked so much better than the various white trimming options I also tried.  

On Thursday this week as I was power pacing through dusty streets  Naledi in Soweto past chickens and children with Napoleon, Chairman of the Community Policing Forum, I thought about how interesting my new job is. 

On Thursday I helped the Youth Desk of the Naledi Community Policing Forum with an initiative of theirs - to paint house numbers for shacks that have no numbers so that the police and emergency services can find them when they need help.  

This was a project all of their own design and I just helped them approach sponsors and get the relevant players on board - and then came to help out with manpower on the actual day. 

The first house number was for Constance,  who also happened to be wearing a lovely shwe shwe dress. DOuble reason to haul out my camera.

Her dress had the same pattern as the  Duro Dress that I made for myself a while ago. 

Her dress is quite simple with white ribbon trim on the sleeves, pockets and hem.  Constance told me her dress was made by a Zimbabwean women in the community who is too old now to make dresses anymore. Most women like Constance have one or two shwe shwe dresses that they wear for years and years as their primary item of clothing. 

I will make sure that I get  the photo printed for Constance and take it to her when I go through to Soweto this week. 

Walking  through temporary housing made of tin is not always the most pleasant thing, but I was so impressed with the  Youth Desk and the CPF  members that joined us, in the way they interacted with the people. It was also interesting for me to see what personal touches had been added to these dwellings to make them a bit more of a home. 

Here, Just because it was such a positive day for me are two more photos. 

This is quite a typical picture of the houses that needed house numbers, but this one had the exceptional fruit tree full of blossoms and bees in front of it. 

The Police and the Youth Desk working together  on more than one thing at a time. Natasha helps the policeman take a phone call while he finishes painting a number on house number 44. 

For my Birthday this week I organised a dinner at one of my most favourite places in Joburg -  Zietsies.

Zietsies, the home of Elzabe Zietsman and the temporary home of many guests and people like me who pop in all the time, is situated on the Brixton ridge overlooking the whole of the northern suburbs. Elzabe has built a glass dining room onto the house and also cooks the most amazing food.   My house has no dining room, it was the coldest week of the year so I couldn't stash my guests in the garden, I don't cook really well, and my Brixton view is of the water tower so it was really a no-brainer for a choice. 

Zietsies is run by the comedy trio of Elzabe, Angelina and Agnes. Agnes and Angelina had gone out to buy some clothes that would serve as a 'uniform' for when they are on duty and they had settled on some brown shwe shwe outifts.  

Angelina is wearing the brown dress. I love the woven herringbone effect of the shwe shwe on the bodice and can only imagine how much work getting the yellow trimming took. It also has great pockets.  Like Erin from Dress a day,I am a really big believer in pockets.

Agnes has a panel skirt on with the great circle print that is out at the moment with a lovely front panel of  plain brown fabric with interesting white design.