#MyDarlings I am so very excited. In 5 days, my baby, my brand new album #ALLOFME will be available in stores and online. You can preorder yours now clicking here. To celebrate this album that is so very important to me, for the next few days, I will share personal stories with you. After all, the album is called #ALLOFME, it wouldn't be right if I didn't really give that to you #mydarlings.
I remember once during college, the UK equivalent to High School in the US, I had a pair of red jeans my mum bought for me. I was so excited to have these jeans! In our house we had a variety of tops that had come from cousins or were repurposed church wear. My mum was a G at buying what most would consider church clothes for us to wear as regular day wear. We avoided the church tops as much as we could and mostly what we wore was t shirts, the few passable hand me downs we got, or a what we could afford from this fantastic shop called C&A.
At 17, I got a part time job that didn’t help improve my wardrobe much either. My check was split up as follows: part had to help out with rent a little, part went to cover my travel for the week, part became my lunch money, and the little in between that was left, I spent on a GOOD pair of shoes or a winter coat or a pair of jeans. I had to buy basics to make it work in stages.... I used the money I’d earned from one of my many part time jobs I bought a checkered red and white shirt and wore it with those red jeans…Correction, I wore it every couple days a week...lol! I always made sure I felt neat and put together. My sneakers/trainers were always clean as were my clothes. My mum was always on us about taking care of our clothes and with good reason. There being 9 of us she was not buying us clothes every week. We learned to mix and match.
I never really got teased about my clothes, but there was this inherent "heat down my back" I felt from onlookers when I would walk in with my bi weekly outfit of red jeans and red and white shirt. I think people would say stuff slyly aloud, but i've always been a cheeky young thing and would instantly snap back. Years of growing up super skinny in a houseful of REAL African kids meant absolutely no mercy. Cussing and teasing were such standard at home that whenever it came to dealing with someone from outside the family, it was an absolute pleasure to deal with in fact it was a breeze...
Making those red jeans work for me gave me my first lesson in creating my style.
'Til next time #mydarlings xoxoxo
