The Most Hated Woman In Zimbabwe

Kleptocracies come apart for all sorts of reasons, but it's a rare delight that Zimbabwean military's putsch was triggered, in part, by Grace Mugabe's excessive luxury shopping. Ever the snappy dresser, the embattled first lady Grace Mugabe, 52 – at this writing under house arrest in the couple's $10-million, 25-bedroom Blue Roof mansion in Harare – was until quite recently a regular in the world's fashion capitals and well-known in Harare and beyond for her jewelry, her collection of designer shoes, and not least, for her habit of dropping rock-star levels of cash in the best shops of Paris, Rome, and London. She famously hit one Paris shop for a whopping $75,000, a spree that she denies but that nevertheless has stuck in the popular imagination. European Union sanctions against the Mugabes restricted their Continental appearances only somewhat since the early Aughts. She remains, however, welcome in the United States.

Derisively known in Harare as 'The First Shopper,' 'Gucci Grace,' and latterly as 'DisGrace,' Mrs. Mugabe's extensive wardrobe features, among other baubles, a reported mountain of Ferragamo shoes. Quizzed by a reporter about the footwear, she blithely replied: "I have very narrow feet, so I can only wear Ferragamos."

That celebrity endorsement will come as a surprise and now arguably as a great relief to the marketers of Jimmy Choo, Louboutin, Prada, Proenza Schuler, Bally and Tod footwear, whose exquisite work does, also, run in small sizes. Shoe brands aside, the fact is that Grace Mugabe has cut a radical – if also wholly ridiculous – Cruella DeVil figure on the international fashion circuit. The most recent example occurred in New York just this past September 19th, a scant six weeks before the army decided to call an end to her spree, at the Fashion4Development's First Ladies lunch soiree, pictured above.

The Fashion4Development lunch is an annual fixture honoring philanthropy within fashion during United Nations Week. That it is also attended by failed-state kleptocrats is not, necessarily, the organization's fault, but this year's lunch at the Pierre Hotel honored, among others, former model and new British Vogue contributing editor Naomi Campbell, who has struggled with her own acceptance of a sachet of blood diamonds from former Liberian strongman Charles Taylor.

There are much bigger discussions under way in Harare right now than Mrs. Mugabe's interest in fashion, namely, the negotiations, mediated by the South Africans, on the Mugabes' exit. While it is estimated that the Mugabe family fortunes exceed $1 billion, a sizable portion of which is outside the country and thus tough to track, it's well known that their property portfolio has increased dramatically over the years, with homes in Hong Kong, Malaysia, Singapore, and a daisy chain of farms confiscated from previous owners in Zimbabwe. The farms include the centerpiece, Mrs. Mugabe's renowned Omega Dairy operation, held to be one of the largest in southern Africa.

Forming the cherry atop this confection of luxuries are the children's own shopping hijinks in the high life. Her son by her previous marriage was recently seen offloading two Rolls Royces that he had air-freighted into the country. Proving that the apple does not fall far from the tree, the youngest of Grace and Robert Mugabe's three children, Berlamine Chatunga, earlier this year posted an Instagram video of himself enjoying his own luxury shopping by inexplicably pouring a $500 bottle of Armand de Brignac Champage over his diamond-encrusted watch with the free-living caption: "$60,000 on the wrist when your daddy run the country ya know!!!" Punctuation his.

While it's not known whether the generals who orchestrated the takeover with Chinese and South African approval were aware of Bellarmine's jewelry shopping or his disco-boy habits, diamonds, in the form of the huge Marange diamond fields in eastern Zimbabwe will definitely be on the generals' minds in this week's discussions with the arrested couple. The Marange diamond fields are large, skimming by the powers that control them is rife, and the abuses of the miners have been many. The mines have taken a curious path toward legitimization as 'non-blood' mines on the world market, but they have been approved by the Kimberley Process. Just 'nationalized' by Mugabe last year, Marange last released 300,000 carats for sale in 2014. They will be a piece on the chessboard.

Around Saturday's officially sanctioned protests against Mugabe in central Harare – unthinkable a week ago – rumors are rife that Mrs. Mugabe's in-country shopping days are numbered, whether for farms, houses, or, in fact, for fashion. Her political associates, mostly younger ministers of her faction within the ruling party, remain at this writing under arrest. As she stews on her well-earned fate in the Blue Roof, she will do well to pack a few of her treasured Ferragamos and her jewelry cases for the long haul. It's thought that the generals or their proxies will shortly invite her out of the country, perhaps to her own homes in Malaysia, Hong Kong, or Singapore. Where, if all goes well for her in the next weeks and she's allowed to retain the money that the couple has reportedly secreted in Switzerland and elsewhere, she'll still be just able to feather her nest with plenty of luxury shopping.