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: MET fails gone wild, Chanel, and +233 Jazz club and Grill

MET fails gone wild. The Met Gala is an annual fundraising gala held on the first Monday in May to benefit the Metropolitan Museum of Art's Costume Institute in New York City. It is where fashion is supposed to transcend into art… but every year, a few looks accidentally transcend into confusion instead. And 2026? Oh, it gave us drama, ambition, and a handful of “what exactly am I looking at?” moments that we simply cannot ignore. With stars like Beyoncé and Rihanna gracing the 2026 Met Gala red carpet, Beyoncé's return after nearly a decade away became one of the night's biggest highlights, especially at an event where a single ticket reportedly costs up to $100,000. First up, the “Living Sculpture Gone Rogue” category. You know the look: structured, architectural, and bold—until it starts wearing the celebrity instead of the other way around. One star arrived looking like a walking installation piece, complete with jutting metallic extensions that made sitting, turning, or even waving nearly impossible. Art? Yes. Practical? Absolutely not. The Met steps turned into an obstacle course, and honestly, the security guards deserved an award too. Then there was the “Paint Me Like One of Your French Girls… Literally” moment. A celebrity showed up fully airbrushed in what seemed like a tribute to body-as-canvas artistry. In theory, stunning. In reality? Under the flash photography, the paint read less “ethereal masterpiece” and more “accidentally brushed against a wet mural.” The vision was there… the execution just needed a little less humidity and a little more sealing spray. And then there’s the “Is It Moving or Am I?” category. Kinetic fashion made a bold appearance, with pieces that spun, blinked, inflated, or shifted shape mid-carpet. One dress dramatically expanded like a blooming flower… and then refused to deflate. Iconic entrance? Yes. Smooth exit? Not quite. The after-party logistics must have been a nightmare. But here’s the thing about Met Gala “fails”—they’re rarely boring. In fact, they’re often the most memorable.

Chanel. This is an interesting brand, not owned by LVMH or Kering or Dior who own the majority of the big brands amongst themselves. I’ll write about the original founder of Chanel in another blog, quite an intriguing story with lessons for today. Chanel is primarily known for perfumes, though today they do fashion and cosmetics/skincare as well. Chanel Nr 5 is their top performing perfume and also the world‘s top selling perfume. It was created in 1921 by Ernest Beaux, a French Russian national who was the former perfumer for the Russian Tsars (overthrown in 1917, so Beaux was probably looking for a job). And every 30 ml bottle of Chanel Nr 5 perfume (a “small” size bottle) contains about 1000 jasmine flowers, and about 80 other scents. And not just any jasmine, only jasmine from the Grasse area in France. The real connoisseurs claim that every flower partly takes its scent from the soil it is grown on, like wine. So jasmine from Grasse smells different from jasmine grown in Ghana. Jasmine, a tiny flower, opens at night and is harvested as the sun comes up, when the blooms are at their most fragrant. Each one is picked by hand; they're too delicate for machines. The harvest ends before the midday heat can damage the petals, which are kept covered with a wet cloth so they stay cool. The blooms are then rushed to an on-site factory where the fragrance is extracted using a 150-year-old technique developed in Grasse. Speed is essential. If the flowers brown, the scent changes and “they smell of bad fruit”. Jasmine is placed into a vat and steeped overnight, like tea and eventually the concentrated form of jasmine, called absolute, is sent to a factory near Paris where a few drops go into each bottle of Chanel No.5. Today Chanel No.5 is available in five main concentrations, offering variations from the intense, original parfum to lighter, modern interpretations. The primary concentrations include the Parfum (Extrait), Eau de Parfum (EDP), Eau de Toilette (EDT), Eau Première, and L'EAU. These range from rich floral-aldehydic blends to brighter, citrus-forward versions. A 30 ml bottle of Chanel 5 perfume (the concentrated form) sells for about $250-$300, the same but presented as eau de parfum about 10 times less strong goes for $100-$150 and eau de tolette again 10 times weaker goes for $80-$120. Let’s hope that climate change does not affect the Grasse jasmine cultivation as well.
Flower fields in Grasse And careful, Chanel nr 5 perfume stains.

+233 Jazz club and Grill. Dr. Isert Street, North Ridge, Accra, may be going over its top. They recently extended the seating and parking area and have more and more entrance fee events, (150 per person in our case). One could say currently it is the place to be. I like their sound system which is clear and never too loud to block your conversation. But their kitchen starts to suffer. The jollof beef fish was ok, but their beef kebab was over marinated and not juicy again, the pina colada (rhum, cream of coconut, and pineapple juice) is not that creamy any more and the bora bora cocktail (typically passion fruit juice, pineapple juice, lemon juice, and grenadine) tasted more like watermelon, apple and pineapple, and was watery. And though they have 2 vodkas at 25 GHC on the menu they don’t have these, prices start at 35 GHC (which is quite reasonable compared with other places). Their cocktails ranges from GHS 80-120 for a glass of Mojito, GHS 100-150 for their special cocktails and GHS 120-180 for their brandy-based Espresso Martini.

Lydia...

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