M.A.G. blog, signed by Lydia

Lydia's Weekly Lifestyle blog is for today's African girl, so no subject is taboo. My purpose is to share things that may interest today's African girl.

This week's contributors: Lydia, Pépé Pépinière, Titi, this week's subjects: London Fashion Week 2025, LVMH buys Paris Soir Magazine, Miss Cote D’Ivoire 2025 organizers ban weaves, wigs and extensions, and Our bubble economy

London Fashion Week 2025: Predictions for Street Style Trends: As London Fashion Week approaches, the excitement is palpable not just for the runway presentations but also for the vibrant street style that dominates the city’s fashion landscape. Over the years, London has proven to be a hotbed of creative expression, blending high fashion with eclectic personal styles. This year, we anticipate a series of trends that will redefine street style and echo the themes of the runway shows. Here's what to expect from the streets of London this Fashion Week. Retro Futurism Takes Center Stage: Expect to see an explosion of retro-futurism as designers draw inspiration from past visions of the future. Think Y2K aesthetics with a twist: metallics, iridescence, and oversized silhouettes paired with bold accessories. Look out for shiny puffer jackets, neon shades, and techno-inspired pieces that meld nostalgia with modernity. This trend is likely to blend seamlessly into London’s unique eclecticism, allowing for personalized interpretations. The Rise of Layering: Layering is set to make a major comeback. Fashion-forward Londoners will embrace a ‘more is more’ philosophy, combining textures, lengths, and styles to create visually captivating outfits. Expect to see everything from oversized shirts under tailored blazers to long vests worn over chunky knits. Mixing patterns will be key, with checks and florals colliding to create a delightful visual chaos that only London can pull off.

LVMH buys Paris Soir Magazine. (Louis Vuitton Moët Hennessy is a multinational French luxury product conglomerate owning brands like Louis Vuitton, Fendi, Givenchy, and Celine with a 2023 turnover of nearly 100 billion). This is a very popular French weekly magazine about celebrities, scandals and fashion. So first of all LVMH will save itself a huge amount of yearly advertising costs in this magazine, but from now on we should assume that the magazine will slowly become more and more biased towards LVMH products and will hardly show celebrities dressed by their competitors. So in the end we will all wear the same thing, at a price set by LVMH. Already they hijacked the Paris Olympics, the French airport's waiting areas are one big advertising space mainly for LVMH products, they are buying complete sports clubs, and they have billions of Dollars to spend to continue this journey of telling us what to wear.

Miss Cote D’Ivoire 2025 organizers ban weaves, wigs and extensions. The Miss Côte d’Ivoire 2025 beauty pageant has implemented this groundbreaking historic first aiming to celebrate natural African beauty and authenticity to encourage self-acceptance and redefine beauty standards. Already Miss Universe contestants have confidently showcased their short, natural hair on international stages. In 2022 Marlene Kouassi won Miss Côte d’Ivoire while wearing short hair and her victory served as a powerful representation of confidence and natural beauty, reinforcing the idea that embracing one’s authentic self can lead to success in the pageant world. The competition also adjusted the minimum height from 1.68 meters to 1.67 meters. This is well placed, the typical coastal West African woman is short. And they increased the age limit from 25 to 28 years. There is already Madame France which is held for women between the ages of 25 to 39 years. Ayeeko, long overdue. Dr. Svetlana Sayfulin, 34 years of age, married with 2 kids

Our bubble economy. Bubbles are important, at one time Guinness was advertising millions of tiny little bubbles on a huge billboard. And bubble wine is the must-have for birthdays and other celebrations so that the bottle can pop and the tiny little bubbles can drive the sparkling wine out of the bottle. Sometimes this is called Champagne, or Prosecco, there are also alcohol-free bubble bottles. And when you open a beer or a “soda” (coke, fanta, etc) you want to hear “ssssshs, if not the bottle is not fresh and the zip is out of the drink. And Bel-Aqua claims to sell premium sparkling water, claiming that its bubbles spark. At a premium price. And indeed, their bubbles are tinier than those in the cheaper soda waters on the market. But unfortunately, of late I have noticed that their bubbles are less persistent. Is there now maybe a tax on bubbles? Or is Bel-Aqua economizing? Has our bubble economy gone down that far? And will the new government be able to reverse the tide? Time will show, but I guess it will be at least 2 years before things will start to go back to normal. And I hope they will remove that ridiculous little tax sticker which has to be manually stuck onto every bottle, at a cost, simply because the tax man does not trust his own capability to tax beverage companies fairly. And which results in us paying more for the product. Whilst we are already charged 24.85 % taxes on the drink we buy in a bar. And that includes Covid 19 tax whilst most of us don’t even remember what year that was. The majority of Ghanaians are not taxed on income, so the government tries to get the money in through other taxes, like the African Union Tax, Container Fumigation Fees at the port, communication tax, COVID-19 tax, ECOWAS Levy, Ghana Education Trust Fund Import, Ghana Export-Import Bank Levy, Ghana Shippers Authority SNF Fee, GHS Disinfection Fee, Import NHIL- Network Charge NHIL, Inspection fee, Import tax, Import VAT, National Health Insurance Levy (NHIL), Network Charge COVID-19 Health, Network Charge, Network Charge VAT, MOTI-IDIF Fee, Special Import levy, tourist tax and Value-Added Tax (VAT). I never realized bubbles can cost so much.

# Lydia...

Do not forget to hit the subscribe button and confirm in your email inbox to get notified about our post.

I have received requests about leaving comments/replies. For security and privacy reasons my blog is not associated with major media giants like Facebook or Twitter. I am talking with the host about a solution, for the time being, you can mail me at wunimi@proton.me

I accept invitations and payments to write about certain products or events, things, and people, but I may refuse to accept and if my comments are negative then that's what I will publish, despite your payment. This is not a political newsletter. I do not discriminate on any basis whatsoever.