A Pretoria fashionista was chased away from a burial in Limpopo at the weekend for wearing trousers that were too short.
Mpho Mothupi, an accountant at a Johannesburg TV production company, said he attended a funeral in Harry Smith village in Ga-Seleka in Lephalale where the minders at the cemetery told him he wouldn’t be allowed to join other mourners because of his indecent taste in clothing.
“Upon our arrival at the graveyard gate, there were about six young lads who manned the gate to inform all the mourners about the rules of the graveyard pertaining to dress code and decorum.
“When it was our turn to enter, I was rudely stopped and asked by the ‘spokesperson’ of the grave diggers if my cropped pants are like that or if I couldn’t pull them down further. When I politely answered that the cropped pants cannot be pulled down further as that is how they are designed and I wore them with socks to ensure that my leg skin doesn’t show, I was told that I cannot enter the graveyard with such cropped pants and there was no reason given for that.
“One of them enthused about how stylishly dressed I was but the cropped pants were the only issue. The ‘spokesperson’ even suggested that I wear their blue workwear pants something I deemed to be inexplicably preposterous.”
Mothupi said he “graciously obliged” to stay outside the graveyard but pointed out that in his home village of Mapela in Mokopane, also in Limpopo, he was part of the grave diggers and was familiar with cemetery conduct and dress code and cropped pants were never an issue.
“Fact of the matter is that I’m a fashion fanatic and I try by all means to make an effort to resplendently dress up in accordance with occasion.
“It is utterly reasonable to infer that I was victimised for what I donned instead of the so-called compliance to the dress code as I fully complied.”
Alfred Thutlwa of the tribal council in Ga-Seleka said it was a mistake that Mothupi was treated that way.
“The rules are that men have to put something on their shoulders, a jacket for instance. Bermudas [shorts] are not allowed, only long pants, even if they show socks it must not be an issue.”
Thutlwa couldn’t say action would be taken on the minders.
