GABE &
ANNETTE
TOGETHER we are symbolically
a REFLECTION of
'You DON'T have to
GIVE UP on yourself'
A
and purchases over the years as we all have a love of fine clothes with the creativity and richness that goes along with that. Of course, they are about so much more than this: as you will read in this interview, inevitably when you are with them the conversation will turn to relationships and intimacy and the detail of how they live in harmony with each other. This harmony extends to all those they meet, who they do not fail to touch with their warmth and ever-fresh offering of connection, on the street, in cafés, restaurants, shops, aeroplanes, in their counselling room and on the beach. Theirs is a true love story made real in the nitty gritty of daily living infused with joy, humour and a profound reverence for the beauty and riches to be found in the rythyms of every day and each other.
Annette and Gabe are two very stylish, classy ladies who live together in synchronicity and union – two parts of one whole and yet each very expressive in their own way. I have observed them and shared with them some of their shopping exploits
You're both an extraordinary example of what it is to live together in such a oneness and harmony, beauty and joy that it is a constant inspiration to observe and be close to you. You are relationship counsellors and work to support others, to discover a deeper harmony in their own relationships.
And much could be said about that. But today I want to ask you about your approach to beauty, style and fashion, because you're both exemplars of what it is to live with style and grace. And yet it is in no way self-conscious or separating from others and only seems to amplify the inclusion that you bring.
You're both so different and dress differently according to your uniqueness and yet you are at one in the stylish harmony, you both represent. I won't ask, do clothes interest you because to present as you do, they must do to some extent. What is it that sparked that interest or what was inspiring to you and why?
Gabe, you were talking the other day about the influences of your childhood, of your father, who was a builder, coming home, cleaning up, and then dressing up immaculately in a black tuxedo to go and perform as a jazz musician, and then how your uncle was always beautifully and modishly dressed in the latest European fashions. So, can you put your finger on what was the appeal for you? Is that where it started, your love of style?
– JB
FREEDOM
in my BODY also went with
the CLOTHES
that I wore
ON
PERSONAL
STYLE ...
Well, it was a mix of all of that, plus, I remember at five or six years old, mum putting clothes out on the bed for us, ‘This is what you're going to wear’. Often, I would react to that and want to wear something different. But I remember being absolutely passionate about the clothes that were there that I loved, like textures and colours, like red stockings, black patent leather shoes. And I remember one time my dad went and bought me a beautiful pair of shoes. He took me with him shopping and I must have been about eight or nine years old.
It was a special occasion to be taken out in front of the three other kids and be bought a beautiful pair of shoes. They were different coloured leathers sewn together. I absolutely adored them, because I already had this relationship with clothes where I actually adored the quality and the design. And I remember feeling that as a little kid.
Then I merged that with music, so I was watching the Jackson Five and the Osmonds and popular American, especially R and B, music and seeing how musicians dressed and the colours in particular. I feel like I just loved how you can express yourself in clothes. And I wanted to do that, not that I wanted to be a rock star or anything like that because it didn't go that far, but I felt that I wanted myself to be seen in the clothes that I wore – as distinctive. I felt the distinctiveness of dress and the particular personal expression and that's what I loved. And then of course I saw that in my dad and I also saw that in my uncle, as I was explaining to you, and I could see how also that I learned at a very early age, that beautiful clothes actually cost something – quality you had to pay for.
And it wasn't the cheap scenario where everyone had the same thing – I didn't want to look like everyone else, so I didn't shop to get the same jeans that everyone had. It was significant, that obviously, at a very early age, I had very particular distinctive taste. –GABE
Yes. And you had a response to colour… – JB
Yes, colour, texture, fabric, pattern, design, fit. You know, mum made me this beautiful blouse shirt and it was sort of flouncy feminine, but it also was kind of asexual in the sense a man could have worn it, a boy could have worn it, a girl could have worn it. And then I had flower pattern flares to go with it and they had orange and white flowers on them and and I had some suede earthy coloured slip-on shoes and a bright orange tank top with, like a pin stripe type of pattern.
Every time I put that outfit on, I just remember the quality and the feel of it. It just made me feel so amazing and I felt invincible in it. – GABE
That's unusual that you had that level of realised sensitivity to what you were wearing. – JB
Yes. It was just amazing to feel. So, freedom in my body also went with the clothes that I wore. – GABE
That's a pretty extraordinary thing to have at that age because you were how old? Eight, nine, ten? – JB
Yes, so that early and then as a teenager it became even more, so to speak, a sophisticated taste. And with that, if I had a t-shirt that was quality, I would wear it to death. I always felt amazing in it and I loved it as it aged as well, too, and I always took care of all my things. So, I had to deal with two younger sisters that were always trying to borrow my clothes… –GABE
So, you were the standard setter. – JB
… and I had to learn to not be attached to things. – GABE
And you were okay with that? – JB
It was hard because they didn't always treat my clothes the same way. This is as I got older and as a young woman, it was harder because I would work hard to save the money to pay for the clothes. Then I'd go out to a club and then there'd be my younger sister who loved fashion. She'd have my latest leather jacket tied around her waist, or I'd see it thrown in the corner of the club on a bag with everyone spilling drinks on it and I'd have to go, ‘Oh my God’ but I guess it was good for me because it prised me away from being too attached to material things, you know? – GABE
Just hearing you speak about your relationship with clothes it makes me wonder, why did you have such an acute sense of style like that? And also, the confidence, which not everybody has.– JB
Yeah, it was just there from being young – I remember being on the bus one day and I would've been about fifteen and I had beautiful white stylish brogues on, pastel blue jeans, a beautiful mustard V-neck jumper, a cream button down shirt with a teal green tie. And my haircut was very similar to now, curly on top with shortened sides. This woman was looking at me going, ‘Is that a boy or a girl?’ I knew that's what she was thinking and I didn't care. I was happy just expressing myself like that, it didn't matter if she thought I was a boy or a girl. I just loved the uniqueness of it – the unashamed uniqueness. And not worrying about what people thought. And yet I would worry about what people thought if they misunderstood me by virtue of communication – I would be very sensitive to that, but not with dress.
I had this confidence of I don't care what you think about it –
I like what this is. – GABE
That's wonderful in a world where there's so much copying going on all the time and the referencing to other people in what they're wearing. From the way you describe your clothes of so long ago you obviously had such a strong relationship with them..– JB
Having A PIECE on that DOESN'T REPRESENT
HOW I FEEL that day,
it’s YOU putting yourself on the CHOPPING BLOCK
ON
QUALITY AND FIT...
I used to get called a snob by my girlfriends because sometimes I'd buy things that were quite exclusive, in terms of cost and fabric. But it was the always the quality. For example, I hated things that were itchy around my neck, so, I ended up wearing cashmere not because I wanted to be an out-of-my-depth snob about those sorts of things, but more so, because of the feel on my skin. I hated ill-fitting clothes. I'm always looking at people in ill-fitting clothes, you know, men who have their pants up to their armpits, or women wearing them too tight around their crotch, or the button stretching there on the woman’s shirt at the breast where it's just not meant to be.
You have to be free to be able to express. And if you don't have the clothes that support you how can you express fully?
I could never go out, especially to a party, with ill-fitting clothes on like that, it would, to me be a nightmare. – GABE
That that would crush social confidence… – JB
Social suicide. – ANNETTE
But it does crush your confidence. When you walk into a room where you're already going to get judgment and people looking at you in a particular way and you're ill-fitting clothes. – GABE
It makes you uncomfortable. – JB
It's a disaster. – GABE
I feel exactly the same about having a piece on that doesn't represent how I feel that day. It's just like you are putting yourself on – it's not anybody else's problem – it’s you putting yourself on the chopping block. – ANNETTE
Yes. It's like being prepared to be the full glory of you and being able express it outwardly and your clothes line up with that. And it doesn't matter what other people think, like you were saying Gabe. Whereas for me historically I have modified what I was wearing depending on where I was going, because I have not wanted to stand out and look too stunning because of the attention that would generate in other people.
– JB
I would never wear things that would elicit sexual tension from men. Not purposefully. Not with intent. Did I wear things that were sexy? Yes. And I don't mind having people looking at me. So, I was completely at ease with that but I didn't dress for attention.
I dressed for me. But even back then, I still am going to claim that
I dressed because I wanted to love myself like that.
So, it wasn't actually going out into the world and going, ‘I want people to look at me and think I'm amazing’. I just wanted to be able to wear what I wore and enjoy that for me. – GABE
And that's beautiful.
..... So then, about you Annette, what about you and style and because you are very particular about what you wear. Is it something you've always had? – JB
I've never really put a lot of thought into it, but being asked these questions and listening to Gabe, there are some similarities in how we each dress and there's some similarities as to things that have happened in my life, but on the whole vastly different. But likewise, I can remember quite young, mum putting my clothes out on the bed, like, ‘that's what you’re wearing today’. And I don't remember what age, but it was young, where I said, ‘No, I'm not wearing that’ – I remember it being a dress. And I said, ‘No, I'm not wearing that dress and basically like, ‘I won't be wearing dresses’.
And my style was very tomboyish my whole life. And really it hasn't changed.
I remember my mum loved clothes, she would take us to Grace Brothers, which was a department store back then when I was a kid and we'd go to Grace Brothers knowing we were going to buy clothes.
And that was exciting for us to go out and I'd get to choose my own clothes, which typically would be just jeans and t-shirts and shorts – same as I wear now. So, I've always, always, my whole life and still to this day, I like having just a few pieces that I love and I just live in them until they're completely gone and then I replenish.
I have a few more clothes these days than just two pairs of jeans and two t-shirts, but essentially, they're mostly the same kind of thing. And I'll always be drawn to wearing the same clothes which is why I don't actually like to buy too many clothes because I know what I'm like, I'll just go for the favourites. And then if I have too many things, the other things won't even get a look in – I've always been like that. – ANNETTE
So even though I was always
A TOMBOY
and the way I WEAR those things
NOW is MORE FEMALE,
there's STILL an
ANDROGYNY to it.
So, it's the detail of what's aligning to you on that particular day. That's what you both express to me, there's a detail in what you wear that always feels harmonious to each of you, but also as a pair as well. It's like you both have the same sense of that in yourselves. – JB
To add something else in regards to the shopping experience, I think it's really important that when you go shopping, that you're very, very present and therefore with your true confidence and true knowing of who you are, because if not, that's when you can easily get influenced by the consciousness of the shop owner or the sales assistant or the different brands. You can so easily get swayed or seduced or coerced, if you don't go in going, ‘Okay, I'm only going to buy what I really love’. – ANNETTE
Yes – JB
If you go shopping and you're looking to make yourself feel good because you feel flat or it's a relief trip – if you're not saying, ‘Okay, I'm ready. It's cycled around for some new pieces because my vibration has shifted or whatever’ and you're going shopping under anything less than this, that's when you you're going to be taken. And then the shopkeeper can also get caught because they're so often owned by the consciousness of fashion. They start pushing things at you that are just so not you. And then you start taking their ideas instead of just being, knowing what's true for you.
–ANNETTE
A good point Annette that you are making and extending it to say that if you are not shopping in a true way then the sales person will also be affected by that. I’d never thought of it that way before.
…
Do you ever feel surprised by something that you might end up buying and wearing? Because we can get stuck in an identity with what we wear…
Even with brands. You can be stuck with, ‘Oh, my t-shirts are Bassike t-shirts,’ and all of, ‘I wear that look’. As soon as a brand becomes so popular everyone's wearing it and they brand, brand, brand all over the clothing, I start to go off them. I'd always like the first instances of a G Star, or Anine Bing or Helmet Lang, different designers – when it wasn't branded in a particular way, but then it starts to become quotidian and everyone's wearing it. And so, you see that person's wearing that brand and they become stamped with that. I'm never ever like that.
But back to the question that you asked about surprise, I find that more and more now as I'm older, (I'm fifty-nine) that I like the kind of spontaneity of not being boxed into an age and a dress style. And so, like today, finding those funky sneakers and the bright red leather flares, that was a complete surprise for me. Or when you work with a shopkeeper who really knows you and your style who just comes and says, 'What about this?' And it's sort of left field, but as soon as I put it on it works. Remember the velvet crimson jacket?
That was a surprise. I hadn't seen that in the shop and Van (shop owner) just came up and went, ‘Look at this’ and I put it on. And I said to Annette, 'what do you think?'
And those moments are a beautiful surprise, and more and more now I love that because not only do you stand out in the colour and the form of it, but lots of people who are my age, come up to me and go, ‘Oh, that looks amazing’. When we went to my sister's party at Christmas, all the younger kids in their twenties, were coming up to Annette and I, and going, ‘You guys look amazing’.
And it's beautiful to feel that, that you're not stuck in this thing of ‘Oh, you're elderly, or middle aged. And therefore, you're not relevant any more’. So, I really believe that it's basically to say to everyone don't let yourself go at this age. You can still look amazing and wear beautiful clothes so that people engage with that and go, ‘Oh wow, you've got grey hair. So you are obviously older, but you still look really funky.’
So, together we’re symbolically a reflection of ‘You don't have to give up on yourself’. And Annette's getting grey hair now – even though she's seven years younger – we represent that together. So, we're very aware of that.
And that's European style as well too. I remember when I first went to Europe in my twenties, I loved seeing the sixty-and-seventy-year-old women in the most beautiful designer blazers and tailored pants and loafers and things like that and I thought, ‘Wow, that's fantastic. That looks so great.’
Whereas in Australia, you'd see at that time, sixty-and-seventy-year-old women in the sort of modest kind of decorum of what their age bracket dressed like.
... Again, there's one aspect of this question that I want to expand on that’s not really to do with the clothing, but more a way of being with Annette and I. So, when we first got together, we'd always put our clothes out on the bed of what we were going to wear. And if somehow we had similar things we were going to wear, Annette would be very emphatic and say, ‘You're not wearing that. We can't go out looking like the same’. We had this thing of, we didn't want to end up like a gay couple that looked like twins. We both didn’t want that, I felt uncomfortable with it, but Annette was really strong about it. She hated it and didn’t want to have anything to do with that. And she also didn't want us to have the same haircuts. Like, even if we had the same colours, like black t-shirt and blue jeans on, it was like, ‘No, you're not wearing that. Someone's got to change something’.
– GABE
And I always had less clothes. So, I was like, well, you have to change because I've got less clothes and I've got my distinct favourites and there's not many of them. – ANNETTE
But as we evolved, we just merged into a deeper intimacy together into this oneness that we are, it is not an issue whatsoever that we wear similar things. More-so it’s there to say, look at this, it's the same, same, even though it's different, but it communicates that there's no competition, there's no comparison, there's no jealousy reflected in it. It's completely at ease even to the point now where we are comfortable buying the same clothes and wearing them, which before I could never get my head around if people did that. But we can buy the same clothes because we know we look completely different in them.
There's something about the merging of that, which is so, so beautiful and so surrendered in both of us now that it's like a joy to do it. It's not calculated in any way, but it just happens. And when it happens, we are both completely at ease and that's very different to what it was before.
So that has been something that has evolved with us and symbolically so – and I think it's a beautiful thing.
– GABE
I agree. Yes. It's amazing.. – JB
She will NOT let me buy ANYTHING that
doesn't REPRESENT
how SEXY I AM. And
I LOVE that.
ON
AGEING...
ON
SHOPPING...
The PIECE is there
TO MEET you where you are at,
but you SOMETIMES don't even know what that's going to LOOK LIKE or how it's going to be
But one of the things that's unique to you Annette, which I think was always there, (from looking at your photos of when you were little) is that you would get something and when you put it on you look like you'd been wearing it since you were born. – GABE
Yes, and that's what happens now, if I go clothes shopping and I put something on. Usually, the purchases that are the best purchases are the ones where I walk in, put it on, looks like it's been mine for ten years and whilst I've got it on in the shop, I don't want to take it off. No, I just walk around in the shop in it until we have to pay for it and leave. And those are the clothes that will always be my favourites. The ones that I go, ‘Oh that's just made for me’. – ANNETTE
Yes. You own it. But that's what I love about what you are saying because that's actually a really great tip for people to know about. I think everybody that loves clothes always makes mistakes at some point or other. And you get caught by the energy in the shop and the kind of space that that is. And then maybe the pressure, I don't know whether it's the pressure from the sales assistant or whatever, but there's a whole psychic energy in shops and things can look different when you look at them in the shop. Then when you get it home and you stand in front of your own mirror, in your own environment, it doesn’t look quite the same. –JB
And because I know what I like to buy and what I'll wear, if we're in a shop, I really get put off by any sales people that try and sell me things that are not me. And it's like with a hairdresser, you want a hairdresser who just knows how to cut your hair, to represent what they already know you are. And same with clothes. I really dislike sales people who try and throw left-of-centre pieces at you and go, ‘What about this?’ ‘What about trying something different?’ I just want somebody to respond to… – ANNETTE
...Your essence. What's essentially you. – JB
Just to add in there, one of the things about when we go shopping now, is that we're in a shopping cycle not a mood. We know that we are going to go and buy something but we have no expectation. We'll go into the shop and there'll always be magically something there that Annette can just pick up and put on. And it's like that piece of clothing was waiting to meet her. And it's the perfect thing to honour her at this moment.
And the same thing happens with me but it’s different how it is revealed. Sometimes it's straightaway there in view. And other times you are looking around, but there's this acceptance that you don't expect anything. And then like at ‘Roar’ [a favourite shop], often this shop is packed with stuff. Sometimes I'll just be sitting there enjoying, just seeing Annette try stuff on with no agenda at all to buy anything for myself and then something will catch my eye. Or I'll just be in the relaxation of just looking around the shop, maybe looking for her (or someone else because I love shopping for other people as well) I'll see something and go, ‘Oh wow, that's me,’ and try it on and it's just amazing. So, you see, the piece is there to meet you where you are at, but you don't sometimes even know what that's going to look like or how it's going to be. – GABE
I also feel that we own nothing in terms of our expression, and it's just what's been given to us – even our so-called style. How did I know from age five or six – other than how I felt and what I felt comfortable in – that essentially the style that I so called chose then, is still the style I have now.
So, it really is like it's been given to me that this is what my body is to represent, which is an androgyny. So even though I was always a tomboy, and the way I wear those things now is more female, there's still an androgyny to it. And I'm pretty pleased with it because I love the style I've been given to represent.
And for you Gabe too, like you said, you were always into the more exclusive – avant-garde – kind of pieces and you still go for those things now. Even though your style, isn't out there weird. – ANNETTE
No, it's classic with a little bit of edge. – GABE
But you had that as a kid and you have it now. So, there’s something about that and it's just responding to the truth of what's actually given to us to be the representatives of. – ANNETTE
And it's also being confident with that because that's the thing I get from both of you – and I don't see that in everybody – is that it's what you are very at home in. Your clothes are a true representation. – JB
That is a hundred percent. And that's how I've always been with clothes, I've got to have the pieces on that actually make me feel, ‘Yes this is me at my most confident today’. Actually, it's the other way around – the clothing expresses the confidence that I'm already feeling. And I don't want to put anything on that is less than that. – ANNETTE
You both emanate a radiance with vibrancy and youthfulness and there's an agelessness about you. And that goes along with what you were saying, you don't want to be boxed into I'm fifty-nine and therefore I can only wear X. What do you feel about ageing? What's your relationship with it or do you even have a relationship with it? – JB
I don't actually have a relationship with ageing as such. I have a relationship with how I feel in the present moment. – GABE
JB: So, is your body changing? Do you have a relationship with that? – JB
Oh, I notice that. I remember feeling a grief for a moment in the beginning of menopause that I spoke to Annette about, but I realised that it was just society's values and ideals about menopause. Up until that point I don't think I've ever thought about ageing. I remember feeling I'm not going to read anything about menopause on the internet because if I do, I'll be corrupted. And I didn't actually go and speak to anyone older than me about menopause. I remember saying to Annette, I want to experiment with this with me and do it my way without any filters coming in to influence me. But I do remember there was a point of feeling like, I don't know what's happening with my body and it's behaving differently and it is ageing.
When I spoke to Annette, because she's always been so adoring of me physically, I just felt so settled in that and confident because of how she loves me and how she has adored me in physicality. And she's always supported me whenever we go out shopping, she will not let me buy anything that doesn't represent how sexy I am. And I love that. – GABE
I love that too. – JB
I don't feel that's a compromise, I'm not giving my power away to my partner or anything like that because I know she has my back completely and because she adores me like that. I love seeing myself through how she expresses to me and when I walk out of the change room or as I age in my body, like sometimes if I'm lying in my bikini on the beach, she'll just turn around and say, ‘Oh, you just look so gorgeous,’ or something like that. And I'll say, ‘Do I?’ and it's just so beautiful and innocent, but it's so loving between the two of us. It's just gorgeous. Really gorgeous. – GABE
So gorgeous. – JB
Yeah. I’ve just done it. We've got so many photos over the years of Gabe on the beach because we just love the beach. Not so many of me because I'm taking them but I love getting photos of Gabe.
– ANNETTE
And we both love looking at each other's bodies and so that has changed my complete vision of, or any thoughts about, ageing. When I hear women talk about themselves in such a depreciating way about ageing, I don't relate to that. I understand why they feel like that, but I don't relate to that. I've always felt so young in myself, I always knew that I was going to be a late blossomer – that's what my mum used to say to me. It was like, your maturity will show itself when you're older and the maturity that you have, people will receive in a truer way when you're older.
I knew that I was slowly unfolding to that and I love that. Even my hair, just to tell you the story about my haircut when I had that done… I wanted short hair and I had grown my hair long and then Annette liked it long and she wouldn't let me get it cut short, even though I was begging to have it cut short. When I went to the hairdresser I said, my hair is not just for me, it's for everyone. When I get this cut, it's a reflection for other women my age, to feel confident about having grey hair and to just enjoy to have their hair cut in a way that's funky that doesn't sort of just look drab and bring them down.
Since then I have so many people coming up to me just to say, ‘Oh, I wish I had the confidence to wear my hair grey, like you’, or ‘I'd love to have my hair cut like you’. All sorts of ages all the time. And lots of young girls coming to me and saying, ‘Oh, I love your grey hair. When I'm your age, I want hair like that’. Or ‘I wish I had your hair’ and they’re twenty!
And it's fantastic. I love that and I feel like I'm role modelling something and I feel the responsibility of that. – GABE
You certainly are. – JB
Can I come back to the ageing thing? I feel rare amongst women that I've never had body issues. I've always loved my body. I love my face. The only thing I have a thing about is my hair. Like, I'm very particular about how my hair's done and always have been but it's very rare among women to not have body issues.
So when women talk about body image and all that stuff and dressing to cover what they feel are their flaws, I literally have never had that. Yet so many women have issues around their body and then they shop around that.
I just feel to support women to just love what they've got anyway. Even if they don't have whatever, because we're not all blessed with the perfect body by society’s definition.
Obviously, there's certain bone structures that look good and sometimes others don't but just in terms of supporting women to actually go deeper into just loving what they are, what they have because that shows. If you love yourself, that actually reflects in how you wear clothes. You can put the same clothes on a woman who’s there in lack of self-worth and then pump her up with true self love and put the same clothes on and it'll look like two completely different beings. – ANNETTE
It does reflect that. Absolutely.– JB
Something that is unique and beautiful to us is that, and when I say unique, I'm not saying it's only just us, but it's something that's unique within our relationship that we both love being naked and we’ve always loved the beauty of each other's bodies and the expression of each other's bodies.
And yet our bodies are very different. I am larger in size and more curvaceous. So the curvaceous aspect of me with the openness, the warmth and the nurturing, and Annette the leanness, and the absolute beacon of truth that she is, and the grace that she is in her movement.
We love that in each other's bodies before we even put clothes on. So, whether we are in clothes or not in clothes, we still have this cherishing and adoration of each other, which is very beautiful to have in a relationship, because I know from talking to lots of people in relationships that they don't have that level of transparency, and they don't feel relaxed about being naked in front of each other, or just being really into each other. – GABE
One of the best parts of our day, every day is getting into bed naked together. – ANNETTE
Or watching each other get dressed. – GABE
I love that because in relationships there are so many images that people put on each other about how they should be. So, it is an amazing confirmation of each other and it definitely does make a difference, but then there are many people that don't have that in a partnership and you can't always bring that level of loving reflection to you, so we also have to learn to be confident in our own skin and with our own innate style. – JB
So, we have the confidence of that, and we restore and enrich each other with that –so that before we even go out into the world that's already happening.
And you enrich everyone else with that too. – JB
Yes, we love celebrating that with other people, as you know.
– GABE
We can SOMETIMES have SIX CHANGES of clothes
within A DAY. Everything is BASED
on temperature, feel,
CERTAIN MOMENTS.
ON
CYCLES...
There's one last thing I want to talk about and that’s cycles. You were talking above about when you go shopping that it is part of a shopping cycle. I also see the way that both of you are very attentive to the detail of how you appear and with that you are very attentive to the cycles of the day and what you're actually doing and you'll change your clothes to suit. . – JB
Oh, like for example, we don't wear active wear unless we're being active. Active wear for us is not for just wearing around, in your day at home, it's just for being active. As soon as we've done our being active, our walk or our gym or whatever, we come home and change.
And put clothes on. Proper clothes. – ANNETTE
We can sometimes have six changes of clothes within a day, because there's gym, there might be hanging around the house in just soft underwear and t-shirts, there's work clothes, there's beach, you know, and relaxing. Everything is based on temperature, feel, certain moments. We also don't hang out in stuff at home that makes us look sloppy. We are very detailed about that. Annette used to say… she was the one right in the beginning of the relationship that was like, ‘Well, your around-the house clothes shouldn't be degrading. They shouldn't make you look like… – GABE
A slob. – ANNETTE
Like a slob or unkempt or something like that. – GABE
And work clothes. You have a particular thing you wear to work. – JB
It's whatever I'm comfortable in and because I came from working in restaurants before counselling, I always had a uniform even if I was managing. Gabe was also in restaurants, but when she started counselling, she started full-time at home before me and she's got a vast wardrobe. So, she was wearing something beautiful and different every day. And then when I came to work full-time at home, I said, I don't want to do that. I want a uniform because I like my clothes distinctly to be work clothes or non-work clothes.
I'm very specific about clothes are for certain things. They don't cross boundaries. Like the active wear thing. So, I just said to Gabe, ‘Look, you can do that. You keep doing what you want to do, but I'm going to have a uniform. I'm just going to wear black jeans and a black t-shirt or navy blue jeans and a navy blue t-shirt’.
So that's what I do and the style still carries over and it's just the same. It's just that it's all black or navy blue. Again, it's just that I have to feel super comfortable so that I can offer my best self to the service. – ANNETTE
In the beginning I was wearing all sorts of different things and then Annette would go, ‘Don't wear that.’ Then I'd go to wear the same thing out and then Annette would go, ‘You just wore that to work two days ago.’ – GABE
Yes, because my thing about clothes being for certain things would kick in and I would project it and say, ‘Well, but I've just seen you wearing that for work for two days,
so I don't want to see you in that on our days off because to me now that's your work outfit’. – ANNETTE
So, have you gone that way Gabe?
– JB
Yes, so now I just wear a uniform and I'm very comfortable in that and very at ease. And I think it also consolidated with deepening as a practitioner and realising that, as a practitioner I was fronting up to work in a kind of specificness. So having a uniform was also part of serving. – GABE
Well, it is also for your clothes not to be a feature. – ANNETTE
It was also part of serving so I’m not an identity at this moment. It was less identified, more in service for the client, so black or the navy blue.
The thing that is interesting because it's not just our clothes, but how our clients respond when they come into our home. The style in our home is very specific and delicately curated by us and constantly refined. It's all colour and texture and there's beautiful plants and things like that. There's this gorgeous view and all of that was given to us. And the style, as we said, is just given, it's all given to us, the home and everything is for healing.
When the client arrives, it's a whole package that they're entering into and they feel enveloped by that. So often we're dealing with people who are very wealthy, who live in massive homes that are very affluent and very styled but they'll walk into this home, into our apartment, and go, ‘Wow, this is amazing.’
And it's not that the style is amazing, but it's the feel and the quality and the vibration of everything as a package that's very holding and they feel immersed in that. And it's very intimate and it touches them – deeply, all of them. And even real estate agents that are clients come in and say, ‘Wow, this is an amazing place’. – GABE
And they see hundreds of homes in our area. Massive mansions. – ANNETTE
So, it's everything, it's a whole package that people feel – GABE
Well, I love your home too. And it does have the feeling of harmony and oneness like I said, at the beginning, the oneness and the harmony that you represent together. And you have used a lot of green which is very significant – as green symbolises reflection and serenity and it’s just so appropriate that you have that colour throughout your apartment. – JB
° ° °
Photos: Iris Pohl