Post Number One

Allow me to reintroduce myself. My name is Keabetsoe Mautla, Keabe for short, and you’ve reached my new home. KeabeMautla.com is an exciting, new website where I’ll be sharing my love for fashion through personal style posts, lifestyle posts, style tips and tricks, beauty posts as well musings on topics that are close to my heart.

It feels fantastic to finally welcome you to my new home, KeabeMautla.com! I’m so excited about the rebirth of my blog that I could shed a tear! After taking a few month’s blogging hiatus in order to focus on redesigning and re-conceptualising my new space I’m so happy to finally jump back behind my laptop. It’s been such a long time coming.

When I told some of my close friends that I’d moving over to a new home and launching my blog on a new platform under a new name everyone asked me why. At this point in my life nothing else makes sense. FashionCapCity is my baby but I feel like I’m at a stage where I’ve grown but my blog has not evolved with me. I’m not the girl I was a few years ago when I started blogging and I’ve felt like the space is restrictive. I’ve also been highly annoyed by people calling it Fashion CAPACITY! I guess that serves me right trying to be slick and play around with words. How are you to know there is no “A”? I needed all new everything and in order to do so I had to shed and leave behind FCC in order to step into something that fits me better.

I will admit that picking out a name was a tough decision to make. I knew it had to incorporate a “K” into it somehow, but all of my ideas were unoriginal and most importantly they had been used already. I blame the Kardashians for that. After brainstorming and pages upon pages of mindmaps I reached mental fatigue and decided to just use the name my Mama gave me. She knows best right? That came with another level on anxiety because my name isn’t the easiest to spell and pronounce so I wondered how it would go down with you, my dear reader. Would you be so annoyed with having to type it out that you just wouldn’t visit anymore? I hope not! KeabeMautla.com made the most sense to me because it encapsulates everything I am.

So what’s different about this site I hear you asking? Alot! I’ve become more busy with work and life commitments, so although I still love blogging I don’t have the amount of time I used to have available to dedicate to blogging. Before it was all about the number of posts I published to ensure I kept the traffic up. So in order to keep doing this I needed to rethink my strategy. This time around I’ll be blogging less frequently but I promise to bring you original and better quality content. I won’t only be focusing on fashion but will be including a lot more lifestyle posts, beauty posts, shopping tips and some generally cool stuff I think you’ll appreciate. I’m also really excited to start introducing some discussion posts about topics that are on my mind that I previously didn’t share. It’s important for me create posts which are of substance. I love fashion as much as the next girl but there’s so much more to life. FCC was basically where I dumped anything and everything I liked. There was zero structure, no cohesion and it was unfocused. It just turned into a fashion paella of sorts. This is FCC’s older, more refined sister who’s got her life sorted out a little more.

Parisian chic came to mind when I first noticed this dress at ZARA. The high neckline and navy blue and white  stripes gives off a cool  nautical feel. I chose a size bigger (it’s a medium) because of how it falls loosely on my  body and  hits my leg right above my knee. Dresses don’t always have to be super short. This is demure and sexy at the same time and I don’t even feel like it’s trying too hard. A bold red lipstick and dramatic cat eye sunglasses seal the deal and transport me from South Africa to the shores of Cote D’Azure. This was actually shot on the beach in Cape Town but we’re close enough right? Less is more and sometimes its the paired down, uncomplicated outfits that pack the hardest punch.

Can we talk about how sexy these sandals are? I paired the look with strappy white sandals which I had my eye on since the Aldo Rise x Misha Nonoo range was announced earlier this year. I had to wait a few months to get them, but it was well worth the wait. I fell in love with Misha Nonoo’s aesthetic when I first saw her as a 2013 finalist in the CFDA/Vogue Fashion Fund which aired on E!. She unfortunately lost out to the boys at Public School but she remained one of my favourite designers. London raised Nonoo is such a lady and she has that undeniable British wit and charm to boot. Her personality radiates through her clothing and shoes. Now I just need to decide whether I want this pair in purple as well.

Dress – ZARA| Shoes – Aldo Rise x Misha Nonoo| Sunglasses – Tom Ford

Photographs – Tegan Smith