kagablog

SUPERMODELS

Athena, modelling for Ampleby proved to be the most phenomenal model. It was as if his garments magnified her essence. At the next 330 fashion show she was a total hit. If ever Durban produced a super model, this was her. Yet she was not interested in approaching a modelling agency or going through any conventional channel. Eventually she would only model for Ampleby. On the ramp she transformed into a super creature that completely galvanised everyone. He had created a red corduroy bustiere dress, short, strapless, a short red corduroy jacket with a peplum style collar, which framed her face. He made long gloves to hide her scar. Her hair: white blond and styled into a forties crimp, short, gelled, waving into her neck at the back. False eyelashes and her 16 hole Doc Martens completed the look. Mathyra had come down from JHB to model for him. For her he had created a short flounced silver skirt, shiny silvergreen bustiere top, and burgundy velvet jacket lined with pink black-spotted fabric. Her Eastern looks, thick crimped long black hair, her Doc Martens, her movement to Tuxedomoon’s version of ‘Venus in Furs’ had the audience spell bound. The ever innovative Genie created a range using feathered masks, headdresses. Spacey (the third designer in this show) had the tall waspish Gaiela, goth-like, wafting in layers of black and purple chiffon.This fashion show, held on the Friday night, was electrifying. Two Tech students video’d the show, went back stage and filmed the models making up. Daida, beautician and make up artist, back for a short spell from London, was on hand to work her make-up magic. The same show held the following night met with stiff upper lips and aloofness. Oddly, Ampleby was accused of having some secret source of inspiration….some exclusive design magazine from overseas….that nobody else had access to…..these garments could never possibly have been inspired by his own imagination. For them, there was no such thing as a designer that created designs, that set the trend - in Durban designers followed fashion, they did not create fashion!
He was a marked man - a persecution.

CRASH

Cheth had a motorbike crash. It happened in the pouring rain along a stretch of road that Ampleby dubbed Durban’s Rain Belt. If there was rain anywhere in Durban, this is where it would be found: from approximately half way along Cowie Road, into Botanic Gardens Road almost as far as Mansfield Road near the Natal Technikon. A tricky bend dipped into a curve as Botanic Gardens Road twisted above Botanic Gardens itself heading towards the Technikon. Cheth lost control, careering into one of the street poles or palm trees. His lower leg was smashed just below the knee, having borne the full brunt of motorbike metal slamming into steel/trunk. For a while his leg was in danger of needing to be amputated. A 6cm gap in his tibia from where crushed bone had to be removed refused to grow. Eventually the doctors performed bone grafts and built a bridge between the broken bones to encourage growth. He spent the next six months in Addington hospital where he proceeded to give the nurses a hard time. A total brat screaming for pain killers. When they found out that he was a druggie, they curtailed and eventually stopped giving him any scheduled drugs. When he was finally discharged with a set of crutches and his leg in pins, he was physically more of a wreck than when he went in. Maya, with whom he had been living for about a two years, stuck with him throughout this ordeal. He recovered with a distinct limp.
Two years later he and Ampleby went on a jol for old times sake. Cheth took him to supper, then they went on a club crawl. Cheth proceeded to get more and more ‘out of it’ and Ampleby could not work out what he was on. In the early hours of the morning, Cheth insisted on coming back to the flat. When they undressed, he saw the scar on Cheth’s leg for the first time since the accident. That exquisite calf was gnarled and mangled. It looked as if a shark had torn a chunk out of him and the wound had been left unattended. Ampleby could see no evidence of stitches, or of any attempt at plastic surgery. Approximately six months later, Cheth and Maya invited Ampleby to supper. What became evident was that Cheth had been behaving extremely non-rationally. He had put jik in his landlords fish tank. When Maya was away he would pass out for hours and appear to be unraisable….the landlord could see his abandoned arm over the edge of the bed, immobile, unresponsive to bangs. Now, it was difficult to make any sense out of what it was he was saying, although he himself was oblivious to his lack of logic. Maya gave Ampleby a pleading look, and from time to time, Maya and Ampleby just looked at each other as Cheth continued in his incoherent reality.

ISOLATION

Ampleby celebrated 10 years as a DJ. He hated any form of nostalgia, or celebration, but 10 years as a pioneer of the alternative movement is not something to be passed by lightly - as Zee had impressed on him. A cake was made that looked like a vinyl record - black liquorice icing! Somebody, probably Zee, passed a shirt around on which everyone signed their name and wrote a short message. At the same party he heard a rumour that he was ‘closing down’. That he was giving up djing. In typical Durban-speak, this meant that there was a new club on the horizon and the organisers were preparing the Durban public for their opening.
Many other alternative clubs had risen in opposition during his dj career. None had taken root. The new club prided itself beforehand as being the club that was going to close PLAY down.
The new club THE RIFT opened with overwhelming determination. A fair section of PLAY ‘faithfuls’ did not go to the opening which came at a time when he was needing a break - two years and not a single Friday had he missed! Three weeks later and it became obvious that PLAY had a struggle on its hands. He approached Kim and Betty and suggested that they overhaul his overheads, as he was now working at a financial loss, and that they should rethink their strategy. That he needed their support in what was going to be quite a tough time, even if only temporary. They showed no interest in his plight. He said that he would take a break for a month and that they should renegotiate if they wanted him back. He did not reject them, or part on bad terms, due to the sometimes strange cycles within the club scene: Faces surely was a case in point. The owners of the Rift (ex Faces ex Play supporters) had wasted no time in cashing in on the burgeoning grunge wave that fitted into Durban like a glove. This was an exact reflection of how Durban dressed surfer-style, so very little change or adjustment was needed. They could go exactly as they were. They could continue without any further threat to their closet being opened. Nirvana with their hit single “Smells like teen spirit” epitomised this new shift towards the over ground. The radical face of commerciality. It was a track Ampleby never played. “No wonder Cobain committed suicide,” thought Ampleby “it was all going horribly wrong…” And then of course the grunge bands came in thick and fast, all trying to sound like each other. This was the backlash. Yet the dj’s did not know HOW to look for music, what QUALITIES to uphold, what it all MEANT. So they just played follow the leader. And the leader was none other than an 5FM radio dj who had been playing alternative music on the airwaves, who up till then had never seen the inside of a club, who had no idea of what ‘dance’ actually meant, and was simply playing a handed down playlist anyway. Playing music of the ‘rebellious establishment’. A contradiction in terms. And those tapes that Ampleby had made during his dj sessions for all and sundry, certainly came in very handy! But Kim and Betty never got back to Ampleby. He drove past the club one Friday night on his way to the Vic Bar, to see parked cars and waves of alternative sounds drifting into the night air. What had they done? Had they hauled in another DJ? Gyreth? Gyreth getting in on the act while he could? So, that was it. He was out. He was replaceable.