In Slate:
In South African townships, an ostentatious youth subculture is about much more than expensive clothing:
In South African townships, an ostentatious youth subculture is about much more than expensive clothing:
Many subcultures in different times and places have used ostentatious dress and exorbitant spending as a way to assert status, from 1980s hip-hop culture in the Bronx to post-communist Moscow’s uber-rich oligarchs in the 1990s. To some extent, the skhothanes are no different. As they skhot (boast) about the names of the high-end Italian brands they’re sporting—Arbiter, Rossi Moda, Sfarzo—they never fail to mention the price tag, too. For young men living in a country where economic development hasn’t translated into what’s needed most—jobs for young people—skhothane culture is not just a way to stand out, but a way for young South Africans to move up in a society that offers them few options. While this social mobility may be more perceived than actual, one township local summed up their motivation nicely: “When they do what they do, absolutely no one can do it better. They feel like kings.”
Photo by Motheo Modaguru Moeng
