This week's contributors: Lydia, Doré Fasolati, this week's subjects: African Fashion, Karoline Vitto body curves and Gorunway, Luisel and Eliano Ramos die of hunger, Supermodel Cara Delevingne crashes on drugs, looking for a partner, Martin Egblewogbe

African fashion trends of the season

Fashion week season is here again but with a new twist of more African style than regular adopted foreign styles. Ethical fashion is the new trend with the world embracing its sustainability options as a must, here are some of the fashion pieces you need to own in your closet.

Corset tops are seasonless and perfect for any occasion if paired right.

• Maxi skirt whether long or short works pretty well with casual tops and dressy ones as well.
• A pair of palazzo pants won’t do you bad at all by Zakiya Mahama.
• 2 inches step in heels give off the Cinderella vibe.
• A Tailored waistcoat for the cover.
• An oversized jacket with a skimpy dress.
• A fabulous sequins outfit is not just for Christmas but it can sparkle every day in your life.

Karoline Vitto, Italian designer, recently launched her 2023 ready-to-wear spring fashion collection by celebrating the curves and accentuating the folds of women's bodies, thus challenging established beauty standards. She places the body in the center of the design process. All pieces are made-to-order,...

And Gorunway follows suit in some of their 2023 collections.

This is an interesting development, runway models used to literarily starve themselves to be slim.  Luisel Ramos, Uruguayan model, died in August 2006 at the age of 22 because before her last show she had been on diet coke and salad diet for 3 months and then had a BMI (Body Mass Index) of 14.5,  while medically anything below 18 is considered unhealthy, and below 16 is classified as severe thinness by the World Health Organization. BMI takes height and weight into consideration.

In the wake of Ramos' death, Madrid Fashion Week (held in September 2006) set a minimum BMI of 18 for all models. In December that year, Italian fashion designers banned size zero models from walking down their catwalks

In February the next year 2007, Luisel's 18-year-old sister Eliana Ramos, also a model, died of an apparent heart attack, believed to be related to malnutrition.

Supermodel Cara Delevingne, 30, after ten years of a dazzling career as one of the most sought-after models, recently started behaving jittery and crashed back to earth, disgraced. Rumour has it she was trying to kick a heroin habit.   

Especially in the creative arts scene, drugs are often used in the hope that they will lead to creativity,  creating something new every day is not easy, try. And the rumor that musicians use drugs has a lot of basis in it, though many musicians don't use anything at all. But imagine having to be on stage 4 nights a week or so and showing happiness and enthusiasm to the crowd, again, and again and again, night after night after night. So often drugs seem to make life easier. But as with any medicine, eventually you get hooked, addicted, and the body then gets used to it and needs more and more and more to get the same effect. Until the body says I cannot handle this anymore, and then we hear on the news that so and so was found dead in the hotel room, overdose. Like Whitney Houston, Amy Winehouse, Jimmy Hendrix, Prince, Janis Joplin, Michel Jackson, Elvis Presley, Ike Turner, just to mention a few of the very famous ones. The list is very long, in the USA alone more than 100,000 people (including artists) died last year because of overdoses. That's like the entire population of Koforidua wiped out in 1 year. But back to our artists, I have a question. If an artist performs in a foreign town, where does he get the drugs?  He knows no one there. Carrying them across borders is risky, as Brittney Griner, a USA basketball player can testify. So who supplies the drugs? One person always traveling with the artist is the manager, same person who booked the concert and who stands to loose heavily if the artist cancels because of tiredness or no mood. So, please take a pill or a shot, feel fine and give a good show, I'll make sure everything is there when we arrive. I dare say that in too many of these performing artist overdose cases the manager is to blame, he should not have booked the concerts and supplied the drugs, but rather send the artiste to a rehabilitation center. But money matters more. Murderers.

Looking for a partner? In Blog 5, in July this year, I suggested that, before you dive into a relationship, you start writing down what you like and what you don’t like so that you get a better idea of what you want in life, and what you don’t want in life. If you did as I suggested you now have a more detailed idea of who you really are, the sort of things that go with you or don’t go with you. Let's now take it a bit further, what do you want from a relationship? That he brings a present every day and buys you a car? That he never sets an eye on any other women? That he is Mr. Tops in bed?  Let’s be more realistic. Things like respect, tenderness, understanding, listening, taking an active interest in the kids, or doing house chores may be more important in a long relationship than a new car. Remember, money can't buy love. So start writing down what you want from the relationship and forget what you see in movies, that are edited, and you can’t edit your relationship which you want to last 50 years or so. We talk again in a few months. Meanwhile, look around you. How many happily married couples do you know? So treat this seriously.

I'm reading a hilarious book by Martin Egblewogbe, a Ghanaian writer, ( Publ. Lubin & Kleinman, London, 2020), called “Waiting”.  Amongst Ghanaian writers I have read of late, this one sticks out by taking a very different approach to things. I recommend.

Lydia...

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