This week's contributors: Lydia, Doré Fasolati, this week's subjects: Fashion event clash, Real Dutch wax print and slavery, Silver and gold .

Fashion event clash

Organizing events is not easy but one can sure do make it simple and classy. Timing is key in everything …. Whereas in the event world. Fashion event date clashes a lot in our part of the world unlike the western hemisphere. For instance, New York fashion week will not schedule their events same time as Paris Fashion week…. This gives room for both event and its guest to enjoy the experience planned. 

But here in Ghana, major shows feel the need to sabotage similar events; due to this mediocrity, fashion show attendees or guests end up leaving a particular show early so they can still make it for the other event or choose to attend just one event. This is just inconveniently disrespectful to guests. 

Organizers of these local shows can meet to discuss and agree to schedules and dates so they don’t end up ruining guest experiences with unclear schedules. That being said, we hope to see improvements in our upcoming seasonal show schedules.

Real Dutch Wax Print and slavery.
The real original motive of the Portuguese and Dutch to visit the West Coast of Africa was not slaves but they were on their way to the Far East where they hoped to buy spices and medical herbs much cheaper than the ones which came to Europe through Arabic countries. First of all they needed regular fresh water on their journey from Europe to the Far East, which took about 2 years in and out, so they needed to come ashore from time to time before they could continue their journey. And once they landed they were to report on other things of interest, like gold, salt, ivory, and, once America had been “discovered” they also became interested in slaves as labour for the plantations which were set up there. So eventually they set up trading posts.

Elmina Castle, one of the first ones, initially was a general trading post, not really geared towards slaves, like later Cape Coast Castle. But the Dutch soon realized that they could also use Ghanaians to help man their ships, so they started employing Ghanaians as sailors on their journeys to the Far East, particularly Dutch India, their colony, later called `Indonesia after independence in 1948. And like good husbands the Ghanaian sailors bought presents for their wives back home, Indonesian wax prints. This then became such a popular item that the Dutch quickly stepped in to monopolize that trade. The rest is history, lasting till today.

Silver and Gold.
With the gold price remaining very high (though down a bit) and the Dollar also being high high veery high here in Ghana, gold has become too expensive for the average Ghanaian. Our jewelers are thus suffering as well and are now trying to find other ways to make a living. So some of them are moving into silver rather. Like with gold, (see my blog nr 6, 20th July) there is hardness and purity to consider. With gold that was expressed in carats (24 carats is pure gold), but with silver we rather talk about purity.

0.999 Pure is 99.99 % silver, pure silver. But that is too soft for jewelry to be worn, so we rather go for .925, i.e. 92.5% silver, also called sterling silver. More about this Sterling issue at the end of this article. Typically copper is used to make silver harder, from .999 pure to say .925 Sterling, though personally i still feel Sterling silver is too soft, so I rather go for .800. But copper has the disadvantage that it often makes the silver black or leaves black marks on your skin, so some use brass, (a mixture of copper and zinc), which has less hardening power but leaves less stains. In that case go for .750 pureness.

Back to the Sterling silver, the English money (today British money), in existence since 1694, was originally a Pound Sterling, meaning the value of a pound of silver deposited at a bank, 454 grams, about 380 US Dollars today. Imagine a descendant going to the Bank of England with an old pound note found in a shoe box between some old papers and saying “my great great grandfather deposited a pound of sterling silver here, here is the proof, this bank gave him this Pound Sterling note, can I have that pound of sterling silver back? So is not only Ghana where money becomes worthless over time.

Lydia...

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