.: SKATTIE AND THE NICE GIRLS AT HANNELI RUPERT'S OKAPI LAUNCH

A couple of days ago I received an email invite to go and check out the launch of the new Okapi range, not from the organizers mind you, but from a naughty friend who couldn’t understand why I wasn’t going...*cough* *cough* Chu. Well I love nothing more than the role of uninvited guest. So I pulled out my 2^nd best polyester blazer, and after an hour and a full roll of masking tape I managed to get rid of the cat hair and stains from bygone parties. I then decided that it had atleast one more night out before I’d have to hand it over to Jocelyn (my helper and disciplinarian figure on Tuesdays and Fridays) to sort out, no chance of me taking polyester to the dry cleaners. Okapi is a range of ladies’s accessories, handbags mainly, which was conceptualized and is owned by Hanneli Rupert, yes , from the billionaire Rupert family. Probably not fair of me to mention that though. I imagine that Hanneli like some offspring of the wealthy would prefer to step out of that shadow into her own reality. She certainly does not seem to carry the baggage of wealth around with her. From the few times I have met her over the last couple of months I would have never imagined her background, she has always been friendly. Even tonight when I run into her after gatecrashing her event, she is gracious, she greets, kisses and takes me through her range. It’s my own prejudices I guess, I tend to expect the excessively privileged to be absolute bitches or wayward wanton types, and that she is not, and I’m not just trying to kiss billionaire Rupert ass here.

Anyway, onto the actual event, the invite was for a cocktail party in an Enchanted Forest, at no. 34 Long street. I was not sure what to expect. When I think forest I imagine it to be a place where taxi drivers are born and bred. What with their graceful ways, and on this particular evening I had just had a run in with a taxi driver who bumped into my car and proceeded to verbally abuse me. The toothless fuckface. Thankfully there were no taxi drivers suffering from nappy rash at this forest. No. Instead Hanneli had turned the downstairs bit of the venue/ bar into….well, an enchanted forest with loads of detail, check pics. These themed do’s are always a bit risky, one little misstep and you might find yourself in the forest of all things tacky. and I’m glad to say that the aesthete gods were on her side and the deco was more fun, frivolous and contextual rather than tacky, in my opinion anyway. Thank gawd for that skat, otherwise I’d have to be a bitch and I hate being a bitch, but what I hate even more are tasteless bitches who leave me no choice but to be a bitch. The was also a nice fun chilled crowd, made up of nice well put together society girls on a strict diet, nice well put together young media girls on a strict diet, and well put together older society girls on a strict diet who used to be nice well put together young media girls on a strict diet. We won’t speak about the men much, sorry but South African men often leave a lot to be desired when it comes to being well put together, starting with me of course.

The bags. Well, they’re expensive and they look it. No animal was spared, croc leather, ostrich leather, nappa, kid-suede, springbok horns etc, trimmed in 18 carat gold. The inspiration is African. I was particularly fascinated by one bag that went from a clutch to a full on shopper type bag in a couple of secs. fuck the purists, I love a twofer skat. I got home and dragged the long-suffering partner away from yet another Discovery/History/National Geographic channel documentary (tonight’s one is about the Kennedy’s, and apparently it’s amazing because there’s so much footage about them because they had their maids – oops, I said maid- shooting video footage all the time) and I showed him pics of the bags, he fell in love and wanted one. The prices range between R6k and R16k, so I had to remind said partner of our real life LSM grouping. Ag shame arme ding.