This Christmas is all about openness + compassion for Palesa and Fikile Kgasane

Words: Lesego Ntsime | Images: Supplied x Estee de Villiers

Cape Town-based Content Creators, Palesa and Fikile Kgasane, are well-known for their adept touch in fashion and culture, embodying comfort and ease with every look and experience.

When it comes to Christmas, the same effortlessness applies; Style, serve, and beautiful things.

These are the words that sprout up where the Kgasane sisters, Palesa and Fikile, are concerned. Both sisters share a love for content creation. Palesa is a Digital Creator and Fikile is a blogger with Honours in Finance.

It is this undeniably captivating love that makes for the ultimate Christmas story.

Coordinating and adorning the most effortless looks throughout the year, Superbalist had a chat with them to find out whether this same ease permeates into their idea of Christmas.

Christmas is inextricably linked with family for Palesa and Fikile. And since both sisters live away from home - as Bloemfontein is their home city - it has become paramount for them to nurture the idea of family by spending time together and, of course, coordinating outfits.

Central to their celebration of the day is music. Palesa is the one tasked with creating a soundtrack for the day “from the minute she gets up,” shares Fikile.

Christmas is in the small details and it is evident that details make this sisterhood.

In many ways, the pandemic has altered how we celebrate the merriest day of the year, but for Palesa and Fikile much remains the same.

“We reminisce, we cook, we wine and dine,” Palesa adds. An intimate affair that constitutes cooking, taking trips down memory lane and songs charged with love, memories, and celebration. As with most of us, nostalgia is an inescapable Christmas feeling, and these sisters share the same sentiments.

“I think dressing up was always the main event when we were kids,” Palesa mentions. Dressing up and getting fresh braids were all the flamboyance a little one could muster, but today that seemingly minor tradition has birthed women who exude an unwavering grace in their style and personhood.

Although gifting is not a tradition they have partaken in as a family, the intangible gifts they value strongly and wholeheartedly are “openness and compassion”.

Fikile describes it as “the feeling of being home - where you feel safe, loved and can just breathe.”

Warmth emanates from every word they share, perhaps as an extension of that silent yet conspicuous comfort in their connection and within themselves as individuals.

When asked about their ideal Christmas outfit, comfort unsurprisingly takes precedence and “a little dressy as well (for the pictures),” they comment. Who doesn’t love a little flair to honour the Christmas air?

Their fondest Christmas memory is one of their late grandmother, flying down to visit them on Christmas along with their other family members. This memory alludes to embracing the simple things; love, joy, family, and togetherness. One can easily tell how much value they place on quality time.

And of course, what is Christmas without food?

“Roasted anything” does it for Palesa, while Fikile opts for the classic potato salad.

As for the widely-cherished Christmas tradition that is catching a Christmas movie (or five), the sisters don’t quite indulge in that much. However, Fikile casually mentions an annual revisit to the ‘The Polar Express’ - a film about a young boy who journeys to the North Pole to visit Santa Claus and encounters various people along the way.

Styled by Palesa. Shopped by you.

And what a precise mirroring of life the film is, our lives are indeed compositions of the people who love and pour into us.

When life gifts you a sister and partner-in-style in one, there is no better way to celebrate Christmas Day than simply relishing in the joy of sisterhood.