Blaque Magazine Volume 21 x Men In Heels

The cover boys:

Monwabisi Thethe (left), editor of Blaque Magazine I guess he had to lead the vision by example!

Xolisa Dyeshana (middle) is Executive Creative Director and Partner in South Africa's largest independent advertising agency, Joe Public. He is also the chairperson of The Loerie Awards, the country's premiere advertising show. His passion lies in the world of creativity and it’s evident in the several accolades he has received, both locally and internationally.

Sfiso Mtetwa (right) is a 30 year old Attorney living in Johannesburg. He is a DJ, Businessman and an event guru in his spare time and didn't mind walking a mile in women's shoes because...he loves women!

If you would like to shop the heels: Monwabisi Thethe is in a Zara pink situation, Sifiso is in a Stuttafords leather nubuck basic and Xolisa holding it down middle centre in Stuttafords patent hi heel (red) with flower!

Creative Director: Thembisa Kani 

Photographer: Divan Eloff

Stylist: Ziyanda Mgushelo

If you follow this blog and my tweets and know me personally you would know that I am cray cray about the rags and can be quite perceptive with my critic. I get very excited when I see a new twist to the cover, I love shock value and in the words of the diva herself Gladys Knight; I am not for same old warmed up shit.

Did I see ‘MEN IN HEELS’ on the cover on the BLAQUE Magazine coming? Did we see Terry Pheto in swimwear on the cover of True Love Magazine rolling in deep? Not in a million years! Is it a novel idea? Absolutely not, we have seen it before. Have we seen it on a South African publication? Absolutely not! I guess Thembisa Kani and team needed a fresh and an unconventional take at the subject matter of “Understanding Wo(men) better” and celebrating Women’s Month for the publication. What better way to do it than with a thought-provoking cover. It has nothing to do with sexuality and if you feel that wearing heels enfeeble a man, then you might have to educate us on what your definition of what a man is. It better be an educated definition.

I have done my heel wearing stint a few years ago at Mercedes Benz Fashion Week pairing them with pyjama pants. Let us not forget the time I wore a pair to the GQ Magazine Best Dressed Men Awards in 2011. Why? I was wearing long pants that needed a specific height for them to sit perfectly well and not sweep the floor and a pair of heels was the only tool to utilise for such styling purposes. I conveniently had pairs from my styling closet that I whipped out to play. Plus, I have mantra that states: don’t knock it until you have tried it (depends though), so I had to experience it all for myself.

Pop culture perpetrators of male wearing heels has to be the Ukrainian dance band ‘Kazaky’ aka Boys In Heels. The biggest break was in 2011 when they heavily featured in Anouki Bicholla Fall 2011/12 UFW collection.  

In 2012 they were all for Dean and Dan at Dsquared2 SS/2012 Men's Fashion Show
 

 In 2012 they also went fully main stream when they meshed up with Madonna for “Girls Gone Wild” music video