This week's contributors: Lydia, Doré Fasolati, this week's subjects: Pearls, ribbons, and sparkles, Allessandro Michele leaves Gucci, Travelling, again.

Pearls, ribbons, and sparkles 

There are modern ways to reinvent old clothes into becoming new outfits without the fuzz of wearing old clothes again. Recent trends show how emphasis are shifting towards rhinestones, pearls, and crystals in every outfit. These were items mostly seen on kid’s clothing but have become a trend for adults clothing. Imagine owning a plain corset with no design or sheerness to it. One can recreate their style into something more sophisticated by carefully selecting and applying geographical features to the outfit by needlework or gluing these semi gems on the outfit. Rhinestones can be applied to fabric with glue, which- because of its versatility- is the most common application choice. Rhinestones can also be applied by hand sewing, by metal settings, or by a household iron or heat tool.

Be dazzling clothes is in season and we are all here for it. Try dazzling a section of your shirt collar, the breast pocket, or a plain dress. Here’s how to prevent your dazzle glam from falling easily out of place. You can try “roughing” up the surface with sandpaper or a fingernail file before applying your glue for dazzling. This gives the surface of your item a textured surface so the hot fix glue has something to “grab.” Usually, this helps your crystals to hold on to difficult items. Now there’s something to look out for this festive season; no need to purchase new clothes when old ones can be redesigned…… Let’s get creative!!!

Allessandro Michele leaves Gucci after 8 years as creative director, in which period he turned Gucci around from poor sales onto the main stage again, with an annual revenue of just under 10 Billion US Dollars ! He was handpicked by Tom Ford, who was then creative director at Gucci. He started at Kenzo much earlier and worked there with Karl Lagerfeld before that one started his own label. It's a small world. Initially he looked so scruffie that he needed media training for his few public appearances.

Allessandro, who ended with a 1 million USD salary (which I think is low, for what he did) reintroduced the “my body my choice” 1978 slogan which originally celebrated legalization of abortion, but now put postgender onto the Gucci menu. His styles were flamboyant, whether dress, shoe, handbag or sunglasses. Sometimes I see Europeans in Accra and say to my self: those are Gucci Italians. He introduced Geek/Chique fashion, a completely new concept. His latest show had 68 pairs of identical twins as models. Think of a more inventive way to draw publicity... But sales are now faltering again, important customer segments like the Chinese are becoming bored with this never ending and maybe directionless extravaganza and, as “one as is only as good as one's last film”, as the saying goes, it will be interesting to see where Allessandro will end up, and also who will replace him at Gucci and do even better.

Travelling, again. We all want to make that call home once we get there, and be available for alerts and what not. So we have told our operator/provider that we want roaming to be activated and we assume that once we get there all will be as back home, like phone calls, Whatsap, Whatsap calls (definitely much cheaper than overseas roaming), SMS's and so forth, just buy a local SIM card to cut down on expensive roaming calls and some credit and you are good to go. Not so. Popular destination Dubai does not allow Whatsap calls unless you set up a complicated VPN structure, and still. Not every country has signed up a roaming arrangement with every Ghanaian operator/provider, so you may end up not getting connected. MTN recently offered me GHC 178,688 for 1 Gb roaming data (yes, you read that right, one hundred and seventy eight thousand Ghana Cedis for one Gigabyte) and they still haven't gotten back to me that there is a mistake somewhere. SMS is not supported again by some South African operators. So what to do if your bank sends you an SMS code to be entered to validate an internet purchase using your debit card? The only way to be a bit safe is to work with different Ghanaian operators and multiple banking apps and to have several debit cards, and preferably have a sizeable chunk of cash on you, sufficient to at least buy a ticket back home or pay an incidental hospital bill. If you travel with someone you can spread the cash and the cards over 2 persons so you don't loose all in one go if you get robbed or simply misplace a bag. Don't forget that you are out of your comfort zone and make mistakes more easily. The unexpected does sometimes happen, and if it happens it happens unexpectedly.

Lydia...

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