by Danielle Whitburn
by Melissa Low
The Fine Line Between
homegrown banana
Making the Most of Yourself and Looking Like an Egg
T
arting it up. Preening and primping. Getting out the big guns. Whatever you want to call it, we all (especially us ladies) do it on a daily basis. It’s that little bit of perfume sprinkled on your jacket, that extra nice pair of earrings you don’t always wear, even checking that your clothes are stain-free before they meet the public eye (well, hopefully, anyway). It’s called sprucing yourself up, and with a multibillion dollar beauty industry booming, it seems we’re just that little bit into it. There’s nothing wrong with a bit of a touch-up now and then. I guess the question here is when it gets out of hand. This whole debate is of course contextual. Working out at the gym is a low-key spruce scenario - your hair can be matted, skin smelly, looks ugly (although this one is a bit of a paradox, as you are indeed going there to improve your looks anyway). But then there are a few tricky ones. Class. Client meetings. A cheeky one in the pub. Aimless wandering around the streets pretending to do work you should be doing. Do you have to look polished for these activities? Do you look like a dork if you do? I’m not sure exactly who wrote ‘the rules’, but they certainly do exist. There’s that linger on the person in the room who definitely overstepped the boundaries when it came to personal presentation. The question is: why do we care? I’m not going to be insulting and say it’s because you believe what a person looks like actually reflects what they are like inside, let alone their dress. But then they do, in a way. A fashion choice in the wardrobe goes through several key stages: the magical moment, the money and the modelling. If you can like something enough to be bothered to go through these stages, then in some way the pieces that you wear reflect what you feel like or how you would like to be seen. So to what extent does a dressy missy or a hard-out hunk resemble the way they dress? Besides the fact that I have used the term ‘egg’ in the title as connoting a type of person, there is one other aspect that makes this column unmistakably Kiwi. It is that it assumes there is something wrong with being a ‘hard-out’. Our tall-poppy syndrome can be rather hindering in this sense. We can be successful and elegant, friendly and fun, but there’s always going to be some bitter bitch in the corner that can’t take it. In the matter of people that overdress or dress actually how they would like to (e.g. not in a jeans, t-shirt, hoodie/Kathmandu jacket plus chucks kind of way), are we as a society just being a bigger, more bitter bitch? What is it to us whether someone likes to wear heels to the football or studs in the workplace? Is it because secretly we think they look fabulous and can’t bear to express it? Because we would, underneath, love to rock out some crazy form of hippy gear but don’t have the confidence they have to take it from the closet to the street? Readers, please. There are enough guys trying to naturally finish their sets without having to comment on someone else’s. To leave you with a less bitter taste in your mouth: be happy for those who dare to dress up or dress crazy. Secretly, we all know, there’s a part of us like that too. Think about what your dress fantasy is. Pocahontas? The Grudge? Yourself? For the meantime, though, go back to your fearful black cardigans and I-clearly-don’t-care-but-pay-a-lot-of-moneyto-not-care Kathmandus. Your peers will thank you for it.
I
n most common dollar stores, there’s a section where they sell paua shell pendants labelled as “genuine New Zealand souvenirs”. Typically, this is where you’ll see silver and sea blue paua shell pendants in the shape of a kiwi bird, butterfly, dolphin, or something that is meant to represent a traditional Maori fishing hook. But there’s one new design I’ve been seeing recently that’s caught my attention, and that’s a paua shell souvenir necklace in the shape of the Auckland Sky Tower. Now, despite its cheap $3.50 price tag, I cannot seem to understand why someone would want to wear an Auckland Sky Tower paua pendant around their neck. I have as much pride for our city as most other JAFAs (Just Another Friendly Aucklander), but I would not feel compelled to buy the pendant equivalent of our city’s tallest building. The Auckland Sky Tower is no where near worthy enough to become a romantic accessory charm like the Eiffel Tower jewellery and when shaped into its paua pendant form, it resembles more of a small deformed soldering mess than a classy cultured item. In my mind, it is something that gets your attention for all the wrong reasons. Seeing ugly looking pendants in the dollar store had me thinking about all the other terrible souvenirs I’ve collected myself throughout the years. Nail-clippers moulded with the image of the Malaysian Petronas Towers, snowglobes with cartoon dolphins from the Gold Coast, a big fuzzy Koala head attached to a pencil case from Perth, just to name a few. Although these souvenirs represent the iconic symbols from their native homeland, they remain closed in a box, hidden somewhere out of sight in my room. Why? Because they don’t hold much value or purpose, and they’re just darn tacky, just like cheap dollar store souvenirs. Rugby World Cup is all ready to start in less than a month’s time (yes, it is happening that soon). Hundreds of tourists will look to find souvenirs they can take home to their friends and families, the reminders of the culture they encountered on the other side of the world. Are they going to buy items like badly crafted paua pendants, or glow-in-the-dark purple tikis, or temporary Maori tattoos sold cheap in stores along Queen Street? Our country has such a unique culture and history, but it is going to be represented by plastic mass-produced trinkets of tackiness. What kind of impression is this for tourists when a large per cent of our culture is produced overseas? One can only think of the disappointment little Sally will have when Uncle Bevan goes back home to hand his niece a keychain/bottle opener in the shape of a tiki head (which I’m sure would break many sacred values). When visitors buy souvenirs from our country, they should be buying pieces of our culture that are worth displaying, not items that devalue the country’s traditions. There are artists that create items that are filled with heritage and are authentically produced in New Zealand, but are rarely seen because badly crafted souvenirs are all too accessible. We really don’t need badly shaped Sky Tower pendants to symbolise what New Zealand’s culture offers the world. Maori designs, Kiwiana art, and tastefully done paua jewellery – this country has so many worthwhile items that aren’t being valued enough. Maybe if they were seen more in stores, our country’s better souvenirs won’t end up being hidden away in a box in people’s rooms.
columns 24.
issue 18 2011