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.
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.
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.
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 17th century European culture as
the skeleton structure for the outfits to embrace Christopher’s French
descents.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Does underwear count as an accessory? Great underwear
is a huge confidence booster and no one has to know ;)
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.