The Fendi Man

There is a gentleman waiting at the reception. You may notice his shoes first; brogues. Brown. Well worn. Scruffy in that deceptively fashionable way. You notice he has on beige Dockers, the colour of a wet anthill, folded at the bottom because this is Nairobi. No socks. His shirt is so crisp and so white it feels like the entrance of a spiritual vault. Strapped on his wrist is a classic Royal London timepiece. On top of his shirt is this odd Tom Ford half sweater that sort of looks like a Pringle at first glance, but isn’t. The patterns on the half sweater are various small triangles in different shades of yellows, greens and reds – the reds are the colour of a DikDik’s liver. Hooked on the collar of this sweater are these platinum framed aviator shades. What you will definitely notice is that he looks good. But good isn’t the description for men like him, the word you are looking for, I believe, is dapper. As you pass through the reception you will certainly smell him; a whiff of something masculine, like Lacoste Noir, or something more traditional, like Old Spice because he’s that guy. He is clean shaven on the head and has a fashionable stubble that looks unkempt, like he’s too busy to care or to delve in grooming. Don’t believe it, it’s a well cultivated façade. He is in great physical shape, his clothes hang onto him like a jealous lover. At his feet – to complete this well-choreographed ensemble – is a Fendi travelling bag. He sits ramrod straight, ignoring the complimentary newspapers and magazines on the table and not even looking at his iPhone – an older model that looks like motel soap. He’s a man accustomed to staying still. To waiting. Do you remember that line from the TV series Boardwalk Empire delivered fluidly by Arnold aka ‘The Big bankroll’? He said, “All man’s trouble comes from his inability to sit quietly in a room by himself.” The Fendi Man doesn’t have that problem. He sits still in any of the modern high-rise buildings in Nairobi, whether in Upperhill or Westlands. It could be Rahimtullah Plaza, Landmark Plaza, Delta House, Purshottam place, the Priory, 14 Riverside or any of the hundreds of other buildings in Nairobi where every morning a large tide of very well dressed female professionals in well-coordinated outfits, looking like a million bucks, teetering in sexy high heels (that they will promptly kick off and ignore the rest of the day the moment they can hide their feet underneath their desk), well moisturized faces and eyebrows so well-tended you can tee off them, walk in elevators to get to their desks where they will change the world in many ways. Let me digress here a tad. I’m asking this for a pal. It’s about corsets and sijui waist trainers. Err, what’s up with these things? And I’m asking this out of pure male ignorance; when you as a woman (you can also answer this Luis, if you want) wear a corset or waist trimmer under that lovely dress, then go ahead & deceive the whole world for the whole day and into the evening, before a mirror, you slip out of this elaborate lie and stand there with your wobbly bits taking the shape of the room… how do you sleep at night? Even more important, how do you breathe in those damn things? Here is what I think is the sexiest thing in an African woman. When she wears a fitting dress and her stomach shows this small bump, nothing too large, just a small bump that protrudes and then plunges down to her special area, like a well curved slope. That little bump? It says I’m a woman not a model. It says I love to eat and sometimes, I may over-eat. It says this is what Africa is all about; curves. It says I have come into my womanhood and I am proud. It’s a middle finger to salads. Let that small bump stay. That bump is the hope of a better tomorrow. Let it be. That shit is sexy. Yes we appreciate the shapeliness of the female body, even though you will say you wear the corsets “for yourselves” and it helps define your curves, but when we finally find out that it’s a large lie, we usually feel cheated. For instance, because Kenyan women are always saying, Oh Kenyan guys are not gentleman, let’s say this one time you decide to be a gentleman and there is a friend/ a colleague/ a lady you are trying to get impress, who is about to go through a doorway and you reach out and place your hand on the small of her back to lead her through like you saw George Clooney once do, and there, on the small of her back, under this devastatingly tingling dress you feel, not the warm glow of flesh, but a hard layer of something unyielding and inhuman and you can’t help wondering, Damn, sweetheart, how far down does your bulletproof vest go? I won’t pick a fight about corsets, I will stick to my weave battle. So back to our Fendi guy still waiting at the reception. An extraordinarily well-dressed lady will finally walk straight at him across the foyer. They will do the two cheeks kissy thing. She will hold his arm tenderly and say, “Sasa, aki si-umelost! Na unakaa poa!…” and lead him into her office where out of the Fendi bag will come various pieces of clothing that she will have a look at. Mr. Fendi is a clothes salesman. Actually he’s more than that; he’s a Guerilla stylist. The Avant Garde clothes peddler. He isn’t the kind of fancy stylist that you will see going for the glitzy cocktail functions at the Tribe or Kempinski’s ballroom in their rainbow socks and pants that don’t touch their shoes. He didn’t go to school in the US or the UK. He doesn’t listen to Ed Sheeran or Coldplay. He doesn’t call water, “warer.” And he certainly won’t rock up at a function in gloves. (Eddie Kirindo, what’s with the red gloves, brother?). This guy grew up in Eastlands, maybe Buru or Maringo or Umoja or in Arina or Mosque in Kisumu. Or maybe he grew up in Mada (I know a few stylish guys there) but he grew up loving clothes and the art they bring. This guy started out selling mitumba in Gikomba or Toi market but then he realised that it’s easier for the river to go to the donkey, so he now brings the clothes to the ladies. Before he says a word you would not be able to distinguish this background, which he ‘masks’ in such lovely style and presence that he is able to blend in amongst those men who did grow up in the leafy suburbs. He’s street, but because he caters to the whims of the posh middle-class ladies who drink daiquiris at Mercury, he has to adopt this persona. In order to feed their vanity he first had to work on his own. He has clients all over the city. He speaks rubbish English – and avoids it unless absolutely necessary, but his sheng is deep. He will never hear him say “Mtu Nguyaz”. That’s for you uptown yuppies who think you’re being ‘street’. He is almost always called Mato or Stevo or Jamo, or Omosh or Davie or Dougie. One of those short names that only cool guys have. Not Emmanuel Kariuki, or sijui Timothy Kihiko (Hehe, sup’ Tim?), or Johnstone Nditi or worse, Boniface Simiyu. I just can’t see a guy called Boniface Simiyu knowing how to pair a shoe and a dress. I think there are names that fit certain professions; like Milka can only be someone who has a fruit business. Or Polycarp, who sounds like a guy who prefers to sit in a windowless room crunching numbers. Our guy knows more hot chicks in Nairobi than any events planner or ‘celebrity stylist’. And they all love him because he makes them all look good. He is the kind of guy who will hold up a pair of shoes and say, “sasa hii kiatu utadungilia na ile dress nilikuletea last month.” (My sheng needs work). And because women spend a hell lot of time on Facebook, he is constantly logged onto Facebook putting up clothes with his phone number. The Fendi Man is also liking those filtered pictures of his clients, saying things the women like to hear; “Nakuona, Wairish! Looking gud! That gym is working!” Never mind Wairish is on a constant diet of corsets. (Those things must be a health risk, like they can cause a clot or something. Do they come with health warnings? Like cigarettes and medicines?). This is the kind of guy who will look at a chick in a club and while normal men will say, “That chick has a fine ass” he will say, “She’s a 12 bottom and an 8 top,” (Translation, gentlemen:: That’s some big ass). He’s the only guy who will tell a chick she has added weight straight up. He will say, “Suzie, ni nini na kunona, hii top inge-ku fit. Rudi gym, mresh.” And she won’t catch feelings. These men will fondle our woman without it being sexual. They will run their hands on their hips, to feel how a dress fits. They feel how a fabric holds the thighs and it will be just business. They understand the female physique. And they will never just sell something to make a sale. They are honest and they know the value of keeping a relationship in business. They keep it civil and they develop such deep relationships with these women that when these women travel they will bring them gifts or buy them some expensive shit on their birthdays. And women love to buy clothes. Women will always buy clothes. And shoes. I once knew a guy who only sold chick shoes. He was making a killing! Most of his clients would see a shoe and not resist it. It was hysterical, he said. He started from Mutindwa, and then scaled up. He bought a small Vitz back when the Vitz had just become the new thing in town and he would drive around the city selling shoes out of the boot of his car. And Oti dressed like a don. If you saw him in a three piece suit with the jacket off, you would imagine he was a model. That was until he spoke, then he sounded like a model in Rongai. He did good; Oti. Now he is in Frankfurt, Germany. Love took him there and kept him there. Men on the other hand, we really don’t have such a deep relationship with clothes like women do. We don’t remove what we will wear the next day the previous night. I ran into some ladies from Woolworths at Dusit two weeks ago and we got into this discussion on the pricing and quality of men’s wear and basically my argument was that their clothes are too pricey and theirs was that you can’t put a price on quality. I wasn’t convinced why I should buy one shirt for 6K at Truworths while Eric my guy can get me three brilliant shirts of the same price and you wouldn’t tell the difference, unless you touched me. Also, the reason why some folk resort to buying things off these Fendi Boys is that you will hardly ever meet someone wearing the same thing in Nairobi. I once bought this brilliant leather loafers from Woolies, which cost a bloody arm. One day while I was feeling cool standing at the bar in Mercury ABC rocking my kicks, what do I see? Some chap wearing the exact same loafers, standing at the opposite end of the damned bar! He was one of those chaps who lean on the counter pretending to ignore the whole room, holding their Tusker Malts by the long necks. I call them Greeners. They sip long-necked beers, always swigging it straight from the bottle, as if they are sipping cool straight from the bottle. But beer guys are always loose chaps, they have less pretensions than us whisky guys. We are more complicated, always talking about the years of our drink or the flavor or some other unimportant detail. There are different calibre of whisky drinkers; guys who drink 18-yr old will look at chaps who drink 12yr old weirdly, single malt guys think they are better than blended guys. Hell, some spell whisky with an “e” while others don’t. But beers guys? Easy chaps. Easy go lucky. A Tusker Malt guy doesn’t care for that shit, he either wants his drink cold or warm. The rest are details. I had had a few drinks so I walked up to him because, well, we are guys, we don’t need to break ice, and it’s not like I wanted his number. With as much sarcasm I could muster I tapped him over the shoulder and said, “Hey man, I love your shoes!” He looked at his shoes and then looked at mine and we started laughing. Then he said over the loud music, “We might be matching but I am rocking mine better than you are.” I said “Crock!” and he said, “You want us to ask someone. If they say I rock mine better, you buy me a drink. If not, I buy you one.” I really hadn’t intended to get into all this but hey, what the hell, so he walked a step across to the low seats where two girls were seated and he said smoothly, “Excuse me ladies, but we are having a small wager here that you may be able help us with, who do you think looks better in these shoes?” I was slightly embarrassed, I wish I was slightly more inebriated than I was, because now we looked like adolescent boys who were comparing their cocks. The girls had that pained look of, ‘aww come on, we don’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings here’ So one said, “you both look very nice in them.” But this guy insisted that they pick one, and they eventually picked him. (Sniff). I think they just wanted us to leave them alone. The only reason they picked him was because he was taller than me and also my forehead really didn’t help my case. As I reached to buy him his Tusker he said, “No, let me buy you a drink instead.” See? Beer guys! This is to the ladies who make an effort to step out looking great and smelling good daily. We notice you. We appreciate you. (Lakini those corsets!) But most importantly this is an ode to the gentlemen who rise from Gikomba and Toi market, from the boroughs of Eastlands loving clothes, loving style and taste and scaling up that love into a business and eventually clothing our women while defining themselves as their own unique icons of style. You guys rock. Have a cold Tusker Malt on us. That stuff was brewed for legends like you.