A date with two models at pantsula comp in Zola

The word model conjures images of beautiful, tall and slender girls on high heels and designer clothes with brisk confident walks. The kind that you find at the city’s upmarket boutique restaurants sipping on colourful expensive beverages from tall glasses, while tracking notifications of their Instagram selfies from their smartphones. It is a world apart from what the word pantsula brings to mind.

Even though the pantsula criminal stigma might be wearing off, many still see mapantsula as sleek, fast-paced and handsome thieves that can stab you for fun with their sharp Okapi knives. So attending a pantsula competition at Old Naledi, one of the city’s notorious neighbourhoods, especially on a month-end weekend, to some people, including my model dates, was a dangerous adventure.