Liz Skitch

They say that you don’t choose the Mumu, the Mumu chooses you and until today I had always liked this theory. It helps me in the morning when I am standing in front of my rack of Mumus and rather than try to decide which one to wear… I move into a zen like state, there is a flurry and a blur of movement and color and without knowing exactly how it happened, I am dressed.

Normally this works for me but today… I slipped into a Mumu with bad Juju. I bought it in Kuala Lumpur in 2007 and for some reason I had always avoided wearing it. Maybe the Mumu felt neglected and became infected… with bad juju. I didn’t realise at first and wandered round the house in it for a while. It felt soft and silky on my skin… but the cold morning air started to chill my bones and before I knew it I suddenly burst into tears… with no idea of what was wrong.

I ran into the bedroom to take refuge from the world and caught my refection in the mirror. It was the first time I had seen myself that morning. It looked like a Gremlin had thrown up on me. The tie die was overwhelming, it asaulted my eyes. The person I saw in the mirror was not me, it was an aging hippie, fried at a trance festival.

I felt like a ghost buster as I ripped that mumu from my frame, the green monster flew through the air and landed in a pathetic pile in the corner of my room. And there the mumu with bad juju shall remain, banished from the collection, powerless without a body to wear it.

Every day of the Mumu challenge provides me with a fresh insight into my existence. What I thought was just an experiment in fashion has become a truly existentialist exercise. The Mumu can provide one with an almost out of body experience, lifting oneself out of the mundane and to a higher level of being. This place of enlightenment is known as ‘Mumu Land’. Most people don’t realize that we have all been to ‘Mumu Land’ and it was the British house band of the late 80s/ early 90s, ‘KLF’ that briefly took us there. KLF were truly ground breaking for a variety of reasons and their lyrics shed light on some of life’s biggest mysteries. Make this the soundtrack to your life and discover the ancient Mumu Goddess within.

All bound for Mu Mu Land
All bound for Mu Mu Land
They’re justified, and they’re ancient,
And they like to roam the land
They’re justified, and they’re ancient,
I hope you understand.

They’re justified, and they’re ancient,
And they drive an ice cream van.
They’re justified, and they’re ancient,
With still no master plan

The last train left an hour ago
They were singing ‘All aboard’
All bound for Mu Mu Land
Then someone started screaming ‘Turn up the strobe’

Bringing back the underpant tuck.

Whilst slipping into a Mumu can make you feel like a Goddess of sorts… I feel the need at this point to issue an OH&S warning with regards to unleashing one’s Domestic Goddess in a Mumu. Beware of cooking in a Mumu, my sleeves almost caught on fire when lighting the Gas oven… the Mumu challenge almost ended in a puff of smoke. Cleaning toilets is also an activity that is best avoided!

Day six of the forty day mumu challenge was a sunny Friday… the perfect vibe for a slipping into a summery mumu. The above photo (left) was taken out the front of our place in Preston just before I jumped on my bike and rode into the city and back. This called for a classic undie tuck (the mumu into the underpants) I haven’t pulled off this daring fashion move since my Boondall State School days when the undie tuck was the done thing in the adventure playground (especially if you were planning to hang upside down on the monkey bars). Bringing it back.

Day seven was another perfect mumu day… beers in the back yard and spent some quality time with our chickens Lola and Camilla. But followers of the mumu challenge, at this point I have a confession. Between Day six and seven, on the evening of day six to be specific… I went to a wedding party but before I left the house I made a mistake. I slipped out of my mumu and into a pretty red dress. I thought it would be for the best… I was going to be meeting a lot of new people and I didn’t want the night to be all about the mumu. I find that sometimes people are overwhelmed by mumu and ALL of my interactions with people become about the mumu. The mumu upstages me.

So there I was at the party, thinking that I looked pretty pretty in my pretty red dress, when some of my fellow mumu party people arrived. They had seen me declare that I would wear nothing but mumus for the next forty days and there I was, less than a week later, clearly breaking the promise. I suddenly felt naked. “Where is your mumu!?” they screamed. They were disappointed, I hid from their cameras, feeling about as trashy as Paris Hilton on a good day. Never again.