J&B Met: Made for the Mix

 

Queen of the Mix

It's been well over a year since our last post. It was us... it wasn't you. We thought to make our first post of 2015 a winner! Speaking of winners, may we present to you the J&B MET Best Dressed Elegant Couple of 2015, Zakiti Bhengu & Christopher de Bliquy. 

 
Zakiti is a practising civil engineer as well as an avid photographer (she's our in-house photographer) AND... an up and coming fashion designer. We got in touch with her to get insight on how she managed to create one of the best outfits of 2015.

What is the J&B Met about?

Eish maar why are we exposing me?? I only go for the fashion… but I do know it’s a horse racing event

Courtesy of the J&B website-

It’s a vibrant social mix of the fashionable and the famous, the groovers and movers and the thousands who seek to enjoy the intensity of life. South Africa’s oldest horserace, the 2015 J&B Met, takes place at Kenilworth Racecourse in the always picturesque setting of Cape Town. It’s an event truly different to all others - brought to you by a whisky that’s ‘Made Different’. Regarded as Mzansi’s most prestigious horse race and Cape Town’s hottest party, the J&B Met is the culmination of the Cape summer calendar dating back to the 1880s and has been run ever since. The race became an iconic South African event after J&B™ became sponsors in 1977. Now in its 38th year, it’s a record-breaking feat in that it’s the longest continuing sports sponsorship in the country.

 

When you heard about the theme, Made for the mix, what was your thought process in terms of design and the materials you would use?

It was not a long thought process, it consists of two parts: the inception and the making of the outfits.
 

Inception: Everything starts with wonderful images in my head… I didn’t draw my design until after I knew what the end product would look like. All I knew was that I wanted an elegant simple beaded lace top with an EXPLOSION of colour at the bottom.

 

 

Making the outfits: The dress making had two parts, the top and skirt. The skirt was the most labour intensive (and obviously the most exciting part). Deciding on the order of layers required a bit of thought from both Christopher and I. It must’ve taken about 2 hours to decide on the order of the colours and prints, but it was fun nonetheless.  The same process applied for my date’s outfit.

The beaded lace top was the easiest (but most expensive) 

 

 What was your inspiration for your outfits? Discuss the styles you embraced.

Before I found out what the theme was I already knew that I wanted to have a message behind the outfit. I didn’t know what the message would be but immediately after I read about the theme I knew exactly what it was going to be and it was all about using fashion to deliver it and share it.

What stood out to me was mixing contrasting things together and making it work, Christopher and I usually get weird looks from people for a number of reasons but I can imagine one of them is “you two aren’t supposed to be together” but here we were making it work beautifully, and so my relationship with Christopher inspired the outfit.

I am of Xhosa and Zulu descent and Christopher is of French descent so I used different colourful African prints to embrace my African descents and used typical 17^th century European culture as the skeleton structure for the outfits to embrace Christopher’s French
descents. 

 

How long did it take you to complete the outfits?

About a total of 8 days, including the night before the Met

 

What made you decide to enter the J&B Met best dressed competition?

Firstly I wanted to deliver a message, Secondly I wanted some exposure and lastly I wanted to go to Mauritius.

 

How long have you been designing?

It’s a hobby that started slowly, when I was young I used to draw, while my mom sewed curtains, I would take the scrap material and I would make clothes for my Barbie with that. Much later when 17 or 18 I used to watch my cousin make dresses for matric farewells. When I was 19 I started sewing, buying patterns for dresses and watching YouTube for the complicated stitches… and that’s how I started. So to answer the question in term of years I’d say about 5 to 6 years ago.

 

What is the coveted prize of J&B Met 2015 best couple? Discuss the prize and when you plan on going.

First place prize was a trip to Mauritius for 7 days, hotel and flights paid for. We haven’t decided on the date, but we were thinking April or June/July, we are just checking out the best time to go in terms of weather conditions.

 

Who did you consider your greatest competition?

My cousin! He came in at second place. He won the J&B Best Dressed couple last year. You could say we are making ourselves known.

 

Now that you’ve conquered the Met, what are your plans for the future?

I don’t usually plan too far ahead but I will slowly be working towards starting up my own label while still trying to be a decent civil engineer.

 

Would you consider designing for clients?

Yes I would, however I still need to get together a team to help me out with tailoring, for a hobby it’s extremely time consuming.

 

What is your prediction for SA fashion for 2015?

I hardly ever follow trends so it’s a bit difficult to give a prediction, but what I do hope for is more exposure and success for SA designers.

 

What is your must have accessory?

Does underwear count as an accessory? Great underwear is a huge confidence booster and no one has to know ;)

 

Do you think it’s necessary for someone interested in fashion design to have training with an institute or is raw skill the way forward?

I believe there’s a place for both, if you have the passion for something then a degree/diploma shouldn’t stand in your way, it’s definitely not standing in my way.

And there you have it from the Queen of the J&B Met herself.