Khanyisile Mbewu was a little girl who loved fashion too much. She dreamt big, seeing herself walking down runways in Paris, London, and New York. Millions of people focused on each step she took. She would walk around the house in her mother’s heels like an accident waiting to happen.

She had it all planned out. First, she was going to be the first of her age to showcase at the Johannesburg fashion week, Cape Town, Durban July and then off to the world. She enjoyed watching fashion on television all day, only taking a break to read some fashion magazines. It was as if she was in Milan.

Besides fashion, she really liked gossiping. You would find her hanging out next to the window, checking who was passing by and what they were saying, and spreading the rumours.

Khanyi always found herself in trouble at school: at times for putting on colourful polish that she stole from her older sister, sometimes for forgetting to do her homework while reading fashion magazines. When it was time to clean the classroom she would hide, not participating in fear of ruining her nail polish or even breaking a nail.

“Oh my Gucci! Cleaning, not with my nails!” she thought aloud.

She would pretend as if she needed the bathroom and it would work, running so fast from responsibility. She used rainbow-coloured ribbons to tie her hair and red-lips lollipops as her lip-gloss. When the teacher was out, she would dance on top of the table. She danced like the famous Beyoncé.

“Who run the world? Girls!” she would sing, lifting her hands. All eyes on her, just the way she wanted it.

One day, watching the latest world-fashion trends, she saw a miracle. It was like fashion heaven. The new in-style was denim jeans in all colours, torn everywhere, with crop tops. A crop top is a half-length top that shows the belly button. She wanted them all and she had to have them.

She started daydreaming about these super jeans from Milan and crop tops from Paris. Imagining every head turning towards her direction. Seeing herself wearing them with every child admiring and envying her beauty and sense of style. She wanted them. She needed them, fast.

The sad reality was she did not have money besides the R2 she found on the street. Fashion was expensive and she knew exactly that her mother was not going to buy them for her.

Finally, she got an idea. She took all of her denim jeans. With a pair of scissors, she made holes all over, tearing them at the knees. She cut her tops in half. Her jeans looked like she had forced herself through barbwire and her tops small like a baby’s top.

Once she was wearing her new clothes, she looked like the fairest of them all in the mirror hanging on the wall. Perfect. She could not believe her eyes. Her jeans were perfect, just like the ones worn by the famous singer Rihanna.

She was a genius. Without wasting more time, she walked to the park, walking slowly with her hands on her waist, head up and down, mouth pinched like a bird. Blown by the cold air when she got to the park, she was shaking, as cold as an ice cube. Her stomach was frozen, her knees dry and cold since they were in the open during winter.

The moment her friends saw her they laughed loudly. Her knees were pointy and white as snow and she kept pulling her top down but it was too small. All the kids gathered around her laughing, asking how many dogs had bitten her, pointing at her holes. Khanyi ran very fast, crying her eyes out on her way back home, humiliated. Her fashion sense and ideas were not that brilliant after all. Truth is, she did not notice that fashion TV shows were showing summer trends during winter.

After a day of locking herself indoors, scared to go play at the park, Khanyi felt strange, getting heated up one minute and cold another minute, sweating with a sore throat. Her mother took her to the doctor who confirmed she had flu, which was caused by not wearing warm clothes in the cold. She was not allowed to leave the house for three whole days to avoid passing the flu to other children.

Khanyisile swore from that day forward that she was never going to do all the things she saw on TV again. She went back to wearing her normal warm clothes. She played happily with her friends at the park. She did all her schoolwork and washed the windows with her classmates at school.

Khanyisile Mbewu’s mother said she would punish her by not buying her any new clothes until the ones she had damaged were old and torn. Khanyisile Mbewu laughed the loudest, pointing at her trendy top and jeans, “But Mother, these clothes are already torn, just look at all these holes.”

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Tell us: What fashion trend did you try that people didn’t understand?