The intimation of spring in Joburg has given everyone a much longed-for boost of energy — I know you can feel it.
Fresh buds are blooming everywhere, including at Luxx in Sandton, where the love child of Hyde Park’s Kol and Olives and Plates, Mila, is flowering into existence.
You have indulged my silly metaphor long enough — let’s just say that it is another spectacular offering of Greek and Mediterranean origins, and the place is already jam-packed with all the lovelies of our city out in full force. Which is why I felt it was the natural place to meet Joburg’s most stylish woman for a Hot Brunch.
Yasmin Furmie is in a league of her own: when people talk about advanced style they really mean Yasmin, who has perfected easy glamour with high fashion sensibility and a powerful dose of street cred. Her refined sensibility has resulted in an ageless embodiment of cool that is hard to ignore. Look her up on Instagram or TikTok and you will understand.
She started on the channels after her kids told her she had to — and they were right. Why keep all this to yourself and the small community of fashion aficionados and fashion week front rows — the world deserves to share in her splendour. The world has, incidentally, paid attention, resulting in all sorts of wonderful local and global collaborations.
“Style and fashion were always in the family. I was probably motivated by my father’s style, because he was very into how he dressed and what he wore. He was a very good-looking man and just loved clothes. But, generally, I think also being surrounded by people growing up in the community who were incredibly stylish. I always say that with people of colour you are never starved of beauty.”
We get into the idea that style is the final frontier of personal agency — nobody can take that from you. “That has always been me, so I didn’t care where I was, what I was doing, I always wanted to look good, and I still am like that today. When I go out to a shop, even if it’s for five minutes, I will put in some effort, even if it’s in a tracksuit, but I’ll wear nice sneakers. It’s like second nature.”
Yasmin moved with her parents to Sydney when she was in her teens, studied social work at university there, followed a love to Los Angeles, lived there, went back and forth, modelled and then met her husband in South Africa, where she settled. At some point, after working as a social worker and raising her delightful kids, she took the plunge 10 years ago and started a fashion label with her friend Cynthia Allie that sells out every collection.
Older women are really forging a path in the world. What I love about where I am now is that it’s not so much about the age. I have friends who are very young and who are very old; I love that you cross all the boundaries that you couldn’t before.
— Yasmin Furmie
SiSi embodies their ethos. “We’ve always just wanted to do something that wasn’t trying to reinvent the wheel. We just wanted some classics, contemporary classics in people’s wardrobes that they can wear through the years, mixing the collections if they want to. And that’s what we’ve stuck to.”
We discuss the strength of standing in your power as a woman in a culture that is youth-obsessed. “I think as you get older your life experience builds up layer upon layer. And I think that’s what my clothes have become, a sort of outward signifier of my complexity. So that’s how I approach style — not being dictated to by anybody, or anything.
“I don’t have an issue about ageing. I’ve always welcomed it, because I think I feel so much better in my skin being an older person. Society is youth-obsessed and probably will continue to be, but I think older people are also definitely saying, ‘Hello, we are here, and you are not going to push us into the corner.’ Because there’s always been that. You hear people make comments about, ‘Oh, my goodness, why is that one wearing that? She shouldn’t be wearing that, because look at her knees. Look at her this. Look at her back.’
“I don’t give a damn what you think about what I wear and I don’t care about what somebody else is wearing. They do what they do. I do what I do. Older women are really forging a path in the world. What I love about where I am now is that it’s not so much about the age. I have friends who are very young and who are very old; I love that you cross all the boundaries that you couldn’t before.”
What she has learnt is that clothes are about “taking pleasure”.
“When I see somebody look beautiful, it brings me joy. But also, do it consciously. Often people have absolutely no idea who’s behind their clothes. You can unbox 100 things and think, ‘It’s absolutely fabulous for me, because I’m going to be looking gorgeous.’ But you have no idea what chain of production happened before so you can pay so little. That drives me insane. How deeply do you think about what you are wearing? Where do you think your clothes have come from? How are you acquiring your clothes?
“For me, the fact that clothes are connected to a system already becomes political, and if people don’t see it that way then I don’t know what they’re looking at. They don’t realise that clothes can be connected to systems of oppression.”
