A MAG is a Modern African Girl, so no subject is taboo. My purpose is to share things which may interest a MAG.

This week's contributors: Lydia, Doré Fasolati, this week's subjects: Nets and wardrobe, Ozwald Boateng designs new British Airways crew uniforms, Cyberfraud, Italian Mafia boss Messina Denero arrested.

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Nets and wardrobe

Style trends keep evolving from either going back in time to incorporate vintage into modern styles or recreating a whole different style altogether. Nets are timeless clothing accessories that work pretty much for most occasions.

Net clothing is making a splash on the runway, from intricate crochet-style networks to chunky cut-outs and knits.

Modern net fabrics are produced not only by the netting method but also by weaving, knitting, and crocheting and are usually machine-made, but locally produced by hand. The meshes vary ...

Net fabric with an under-lining of satin, linen, or cotton you can make fabulous dresses. Net dresses with satin or silk underlining are often used as wedding gowns. So, we can use it in a similar fashion to craft fabulous dresses.

Fishnet shirts go so well with tube tops and dresses. You can either go monochrome or maybe go with completely contrasting colors. Long sleeve crop tops offer a certain 'je ne sais quoi'. Pick one with a pop of color, pair it with a bikini top and shorts for a laid back easy look.

Your mesh top looks effortless paired with mom jeans and heeled mules. The top's detail provides all the drama needed for a nice top and jeans combo.

And If you're looking to disguise your bra as much as possible beneath a sheer top, opt for a bra that matches your skin tone. While a white bra will match your fresh white tee, the difference between your skin color and that stark white bra will make the thing you're trying to conceal all the more visible.

Ozwald Boateng designs new British Airways crew uniforms, their first change in 20 years,

and it includes a female jumpsuit, a worldwide first for airline cabin crew. While the new BA uniform claims to be both traditional and unique to reflect British values, and indeed there are tunics and hijabs as well, the airline decided against allowing male pilots to wear the new jumpsuit and skirts. (Their rival airline, Virgin Atlantic rolled out a gender-neutral policy in September, allowing all staff to wear whichever of its uniforms feels most comfortable to them – regardless of their pronouns). But not all like what is being proposed and some are concerned that the jumpsuit is impractical when you want to go the loo. Males, take note.

Thus the jumpsuit has created a lot of fairly detailed toilet talk and controversy. Good for Boateng, English born out of Ghanaian parents in 1967, and who was designing and selling already at 16, and in 1994, at age 27 he had his first catwalk show at the Paris Fashion Week. This success allowed him open a boutique near the south end of Savile Row, London, thus becoming part of those drawing a younger generation into this traditionally classic tailoring area, and in 1992 he moved into Savile Row itself..

Boateng was also Creative Director of Menswear at French Fashion house Givenchy for a few years and commented that his challenge had been to reinvent the French gentleman, and that he had succeeded. In 2007 President John Kufuor commissioned Boateng to design and orchestrate a show at the 9th annual African Union summit, then held in Accra and which coincided with 200 years ending of the transatlantic slave trade, and 50 years of independence for Ghana.

Boateng has also acted in a number of short films and documentaries, mainly about fashion related subjects. His mantra is, “If you flow with history and don't fight with it, eventually it becomes a dance”. And for those who take interest in these things, he has been married twice and has 2 children.

Cyberfraud

I mentioned earlier that not much is safe from hackers, these days, but I now read something which shows things are much worse than I thought. Cybercrime has become an organized crime. The Mafia and similar organizations used to concentrate on drugs, real estate, prostitution, and gambling, there where margins are high and lots of monies go round, often not quite visible, and often in cash, and where risks of getting caught are low. But now forget about the computer nerd who works from home or from an internet café and tries to cream off some money from unsuspecting individuals. There are groups like Conti, Lock bit, Maze, Netwalker, and Ryuk, to mention a few, which work like normal companies, with management teams, hundreds of salaried computer experts of all sorts of nationalities, divisions, lawyers, accountants, the lot. These “Companies” exchange experiences so that newly discovered system weaknesses can immediately be exploited wherever applicable until the loophole gets closed, and they are operating 24/7. Some are sub-contractors who provide personal data and card numbers and codes, and who even manage to handle the codes when there is a double authentication (e.g. type a code you received through sms), or they sell vulnerabilities they have found in a bank or company’s firewalls. They enter databases of companies that sell over the net and thus know your card details. British Airways (again) and Ticket Master got hacked some time ago and details of hundreds of thousands of their customers were for sale on the “dark net” shortly thereafter. Conti is thought to have had a turnover of 190 Million Dollars in 2021 (someone talked….).They even manage to copy bank’s hard drives…..

Luckily we are in Ghana and for now, these internationals are not too much interested in our bankrupt GHS but expect neighboring countries to become more professional and create havoc here as well.

Apart from the usual precautions like not writing your password on your card (some really do this) and a whole lot more, I suggest that your account which is connected to the card is almost empty, and you only put there what you need to do your purchase, and then back to almost empty again.

I’ve been hacked twice in the last twelve months, luckily enough they took only very small amounts, a few times 40 ghc or so, but it is good there was almost no money in these accounts, because in one case even phoning my account manager at the bank and demanding the account gets frozen had as a reaction “please send us a letter”, in the other case, different bank, the reaction was quicker, but still far too slow for my liking.

Getting your money back from the bank? It may be more economical to not try…

And how come we don’t catch the thieves? Different jurisdictions and constantly changing identities do the trick most of the time. Let’s say that technology is miles ahead of the laws in place, and if there is no law to forbid something then it is not illegal. I guess the police simply do not have the legal tools and often lack the knowledge as well.

So take care yourself of yourself..

Italian Mafia boss Messina Denaro, was finally caught after being on the run for 30 years (t h i r t y years), definitely not for cybercrimes he committed, maybe more simple things like running a few brothels, selling some drugs, shooting a few people and murdering some judges. He might even plead that his crimes were minor. Designer clothes, perfumes, and sex pills were found in his hideout somewhere in Sicilia, Italy, so he seems to have lived the good life. And right he was, he is now only 60 and will not live any good life whatsoever again, ever.

Lydia...

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