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: Blue & Brown: The Corporate Girl’s Soft Power Combo, Haute couture, PFAS, Sunday evening football, and Airport food prices

Blue & Brown: The Corporate Girl’s Soft Power Combo. Let’s talk about a colour duo that doesn’t scream for attention—but still owns the room: blue and brown. Denim Blue for Casual Corporate Fridays Casual Friday in Accra is not for lazy dressing. It’s for strategic chic. Pair: Dark blue structured denim, Brown blazer, Brown loafers or block heels, Statement bag. It says, “Relaxed—but still CEO in training.” Bonus tip: Add a brown belt to pull everything together. That detail? Elite behaviour. Royal Blue + Cognac = Statement Maker Got a presentation? Speaking on a panel? Hosting a corporate event? Royal blue dress. Cognac heels. Cognac structured bag. The richness of the brown tones down the boldness of royal blue, creating balance. You look powerful, but polished. And under Accra lights? Stunning.

Haute couture (is French for high sewing, high dress making ). This immediately takes us to the Paris runways during the Paris fashion week where world famous brands like Chanel, Dior, Hermès, Louis Vuitton, and Saint Laurent, are the absolute “must sees”, alongside modern favorites such as Jacquemus, Sézane, and Balmain. Chanel will spend an easy 1-2 million Dollar just for that show. Lucky we are in Ghana where 4-8000 GHC towards the organizers is more the norm. Add your own expenses and you end up paying 6-12000 GHC to show your collection here, less than 1000 $. But then of course that is Accra, not Paris. So what is haute couture and who invented it? Haute couture is the creation of exclusive, custom-fitted clothing made entirely by hand from high-quality fabrics by expert artisans. It represents the pinnacle of fashion artistry, with garments tailored to specific clients and often taking hundreds of hours to complete. So that will cost a bit. A Chanel haute couture dress starts around $40,000 – $80,000 for day-wear pieces, while bridal or heavily embroidered gowns can run $100,000 – $250,000. The advantage is that you won’t bump into someone wearing the same dress. (If you do? Just stand next to the person and say you are twins). And now the surprise: Haute couture was started in Paris in 1858 by Englishman Charles Frederic Worth, who started the house of Worth and showed custom labeled collections on live models, a first at that time. Not related to Woolworth.

PFAS. There’s big talk about pfas (per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances) these days, overshadowing the alarm about microplastics. In practice there’s not much difference between the 2, they ought not be there but they are there and everywhere, and in a big way. The long and the short of it is that both microplastics and pfas enter our body through the air we breathe and the food we eat, and will give a big cancer surge, that’s the way our body reacts to foreign particles it does not recognize. But you can reduce the risks a bit by trying to stay away from these things as much as you can. Buy less things packed in plastic and use less plastic, and stay away from the pfas. Where are these pfas? For our day to day here we can say they are in non stick frying pans. Now here’s the catch: Europe is panicking so much now that they’ll soon forbid these non stick frying pans altogether, forbid anything which has pfas in them. So that non stick frying pan factory will close down. Will it? In Africa pfas are not forbidden and I guess it will take some time before we wake up to the problem and take action. So get ready for cheap non stick frying pans. Not kidding, already agrochemicals /pesticides which are forbidden in Europe continue to be produced in Europe for? Export to Africa. They forbade the use of these chemicals, but not the production. Shall we say it was just an oversight? No kidding indeed, there really is nothing to laugh about in this matter.

Sunday evening football. Not being a real football fan I do enjoy the Sunday evening football resumés where you can see plenty goals in a short time without having to sometimes watch for 1 hour 45 minutes for a 0-0 score. And the camera often goes very close up on the scorer's face, and then sometimes you see the quick repeated eye blinking. Like people using drugs. Really? There too?

Airport food prices. I recently had to travel to Germany to prepare for the Berlin Fashion week (2-5 July). At our airport, recently renamed from Kotoka International Airport to Accra International Airport I had a beef burger at “the Pub”, run by Servair. I paid 110 GHC, the beef burger was Ok, the price was OK and the service was OK. Because I had already gone through immigration I was “international’, so no taxes and Vat on that burger. A mini club goes for 35 GHC and 3 samosas for 45 GHC, but they were fried in not hot enough oil which made them fatty and sticky. In Europe I passed through Amsterdam Schiphol Airport. I always find that airport a bit scary, knowing that it is at 4 meters below sea level. Hungry as I was I decided to buy a chicken with mayonnaise sandwich. But I didn’t, it was to cost 8.90Euro, 225 GHC. I know that food at airports is more expensive, but this….

Lydia...

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