By whose notion of beauty must I abide today?

The day started as I knew it would continue. The bus doors opened and three of B's carer's got out onto the pavement.

'Yoh, yoh, yoh, Anna! Umhle! Yoh, ndithanda ilokwe yakho!'
(wow, wow, wow Anna! You're beautiful! Wow, I love your dress)

The day goes on like this. Every cleaner, construction worker, domestic worker, till worker and bus driver tells me how lovely I look in my dress. 'Where did you get it?' 'No I made it', I answer. 'Bought the fabric in Durban, and sewed it myself.'

I feel guilty accepting the compliment though. I love the connections that wearing traditional fabric allows to me to make in this city. But at the same time, my little western mind hates this dress. It makes me feel big and frumpy. And much as it connects me to cleaners and bus drivers, it serves to, in many ways, further isolate me from people of a more similar background to my own.

I pass Xhosa speakers and smile, because I know how they will react. Then I pass western, non-Xhosa speakers, and put my head to the ground because I don't want to think of what they are thinking of me.

That's the reality of this city, Cape Town. I wear western clothing, and I feel acceptable because I wear slimming, fairly non-descript clothing, blending me into the crowd of other whiteys. But when I do that, I have no way, other than (often misunderstood) smiles, of making it clear to the cleaners and bus drivers that I respect them and care for all of this nation's people.

Then, when I wear Xhosa clothing, I feel respected by one group, but isolated by all, because then I don't fit anywhere.

I met a lovely girl recently. Xhosa, and my age. She liked my skirt, I liked her friend's earrings, so we just got to talking. For an hour in the end. After a while I said 'I have this Mandela skirt...' and she said 'ITS YOU! I've seen you walking to Pick and Pay in it. I thought 'who is this whitey in a Mandela skirt? She can't be a South African!'

That's the reality. The more I ingratiate, understand, integrate, involve myself in communities which are not ethnically mine here, the more people naturally assume I can't be from here at all.

Clothing puts up barriers and breaks them in this city like nowhere else on earth. For all the negativity and stress this induces however, I do know how to manipulate it. When I want to hide, shrink back, or blend in, I wear something appropriately Western and fat-disguising. But when I want to talk to bus drivers, domestic workers and cleaners, and show some respect to an economically and socially marginalised group, I wear traditional fabric, and forget the people who wish to judge me on my curves instead of the content of my character.

for wardrobe remix:

dress: own made from Ishweshwe fabric bought in Victoria Street, Durban, South Africa

tights and top: H&M Glasgow

anklet: traditional, bought second hand in Durban, SA