Fictional character ruins “a day at the races”

Fictional character ruins “a day at the races”

Simon Rademan Simon Rademan

Simon Rademan

Fashion Designer, Bridal Expert, Etiquette Master and Published Author

发布日期: 2020年7月3日
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It was suspected, but now taken as fact: social life as we knew it has been destroyed. Socialites, celebrities, fashionistas and businessmen are scrambling frantically to maintain B.C. standards (before Covid) while some take it in their stride and simply “replace” their prior lives – and priorities. They simply continue #WFH (Working From Home) till P.C. days (Post Covid).

Fact: Covid-19 will be the un-invited guest, and attend your pre-planned event or workplace, but although there won’t be crowds, the highly anticipated Vodacom Durban July (a horse-racing mega event held annually in Durban on the first Saturday of July every year), will take place “behind closed doors” this year. In May 2020 already, it was postponed to 25 July, and now it seems possibly cancelled. While “racing behind closed doors” may sound weird, fashion and Covid-19 is having none of it! 

Fiction: Enter HRL Novelle Clovidia Wuhaa’an – a popular fictional character created as an informative and educational colouring-in character, birthed by South African Fashion designer and author of The Style Bible: Simon Rademan.  Seen as South Africa’s Ascot races, the similarly fickle world of fashion is not bemused that #VDJ2020 (Vodacom’s highly anticipated showcase) has been postponed and/or possibly cancelled.    Whether real, fictional, virtual, or via cyber space, it makes abso-fashion-lute fashion sense to still dress-up and have a “pretend celebration”, Simon Rademan said, pointing at HRL Clovidia.  If no clients to “play with”, he would rather #stayhome - but still dress her up, and let her part-take in festivities: as the Fictional Ruler of The Corona Virus Kingdom!

Horses should run free... Image found on-line

Sometimes punted as South Africa’s own Ascot, the generous host (Vodacom), is the convener of a social calendar highlight where the haves and the have-nots come together and 1000’s of people are happy to be separated by class. Few believe horses should run free, and while The Rich are in their cubicles on the pavilions, the “want-to-be” rich are hosting invited guests in highly priced tents in the centre of the race course. Horse owners, trainers, are like royalty on balconies, and the poor bet their last money to possibly “win” the jackpot via their favourite horse, or jockey. It has also become one of, if not THE most over populated event of the year, where normal people can dress up and pretend to be anyone they want to be – and be noticed in the process. They and socialites alike chase photographers and social media to become the trending image of the moment - or the cover of all surviving media attending. Social influencers wear the brightest, sometimes strangest outfits with slits up to their arm pits, cleavages down to their knees, prancing all over the place, and often leaving very little to imaginations - As Long As They Are Noticed. The “glue” of the entire happening are B-listers (who are flown in complements of the host, and “displayed” much like the theme of this year “Butterflies” suggests. For some (eg the jockeys, the horses’owners), butterflies simply are a figurative but real feeling inside their tummies, but mostly they are the dressed-to-impress who “nimbly flitter from flower to flower and are the Queens of the Day”. 

Design sketch by Simon Rademan

“Pandemics will always come and go, but so does fashion… Indestructible for a day!” 

So, style, fashion, dressing up and showing off will take on a whole new dimension this year. “I have handed my invitation and ticket to my 'house model', the gorgeous Suhrinha from The Style Bible and Her Royal Lowness Novelle Clovidia Wuhaa’an, a dictator that caught the world off guard. It made sense in a macabre, but #stayhome and #staysafe way”.

Back to fact: Just like the sneaky mysterious and deadly snotty HRL Clovidia at times, Covid-19 is not so novel any longer. It may still have worldly might right now, but we already know many of its secrets:  #MaskIt, #StayHome, #StaySafe, #SocialDistance, #WFH, are all hashtags guiding us to not be at its mercy, and adding another hashtag #VDJ2020 and rather showing off in cyberspace would be one way of keeping it away … and of course keep HRL furious!

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Header illustration manipulated - kindly inform us if recognized and/or images need to be credit

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