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, this week's subjects: Paris Fashion Week 2024, Shein and Nigeria's textile industry, My preferred cosmetic brand, Oneness Jamaican and Ghanaian Restaurant, Ritebrand tomato purée, and kebab at Gold Coast

Paris Fashion Week 2024 was a spectacular extravaganza that transcended the realms of fashion, art, and culture. With its eclectic mix of styles, sustainable initiatives, and avant-garde creations, the event celebrated the essence of creativity and innovation in the world. Here are the highlights of this year's moment.

Gender Fluidity: Breaking free from traditional norms, many designers explored the concept of gender fluidity, creating pieces that blurred the lines between masculine and feminine aesthetics. Androgynous designs, unisex silhouettes, and inclusive fashion choices celebrated diversity and individual expression on the runway.

Avant-Garde Accessories: Accessories played a pivotal role in accentuating the runway looks, with designers pushing the boundaries of creativity and innovation. Oversized statement jewelry, quirky headpieces, and experimental footwear added a touch of whimsy and sophistication to the ensembles, elevating them to works of art.

Celebrities and Influencers: Paris Fashion Week 2024 attracted a plethora of A-list celebrities, fashion icons, and social media influencers, adding to the glamour and grandeur of the event. From front-row appearances to exclusive after-parties, the fashion elite mingled with the designers and celebrated the essence of haute couture in style.

Shein and Nigeria's textile industry. Nigeria used to have 180 textile mills, employing over one million workers but this has now reduced to just 5 mills with 20,000 workers. Reason? Cheap imports of (fake) Chinese products. A bit of a similar situation in Ghana where GTP is now the only operating textile factory, and struggling to survive and constantly asking the government to stop illegal (Chinese) imports. An easy answer would be to put heavy import duties on textiles, but then our friends from the IMF say that that creates an unhealthy protected industry. So in order to keep the door to IMF open (unfortunately we are regular customers and show our face there every 8-12 years or so) we comply and rely more and more on imports, not only textiles.

Act 2: Shein. They really conquered the world for fast fashion and their model is successfully shared by about 20 others like Temu, Boohoo and Forever 21, (the big ones), and even Amazon is now starting a special portal for fast fashion. But there is a but. Fast fashion creates an environmental problem, both during the production and with the disposal after its short (fast) usage. But, parallel to the environmental issues, those who regularly buy fast fashion seldom buy slow fashion. So the sales of slow items are suffering and bankruptcies of big traditional brands like Rue 21, Esprit, Upwest, NafNaf and Kookai are more and more frequent. Answer to this problem? Put up heavy import tariffs on cheap goods. And that is exactly what the EU is now proposing. Double standards?

My preferred cosmetic brand. I recently interacted with a top-looking lady and asked her if her makeup was M.A.C. No, she said, Bobby Brown, I prefer their colours. I kept silent. Bobbi Brown, M.A.C. and Tom Ford are all owned by Estée Lauder, and their products are made in the same laboratories and are exactly the same. As are products from Clinique, Deciem, Dr. Jart, Estée Lauder, Origins, Smashbox, the Ordinary and Too Faced, also owned by Estée Lauder.

Oneness Jamaican and Ghanaian Restaurant (formerly Wooden Pub, corner Lokko Road and Nmetsobu Street, Osu) opened its doors last week Friday, so we decided to have a look. One can sit in or outside in comfortable chairs. I took a Greek salad that looked appetizing and was to have feta cheese, fresh mint, and extra virgin olive oil. But the Feta cheese was soft feta, there were very few half-olive pieces and the dressing had far too much vinegar in it, which completely hid the extra virgin olive oil, if ever it was there. And because tomatoes are very expensive my salad only had a few wedges of it. My companion ordered Jamaican curry chicken but was told a little later that this was not available (why don't managers inform their staff on what is and what is not available?) so she settled for brown stew chicken which she did not like. The accompanying rice and peas were nice though. I'll try them once more before giving my final verdict.

Ritebrand tomato purée from South Africa is sold in Shoprite. Nothing special except that it contains tomatoes and salt, and that's all. The next brand contained tomatoes, sugar, soya fibre, thickening agent E1422, salt, citric acid, hydrolyzed vegetable protein, natural colour lycopene E, permitted colours E150d, E129, and E110, antioxidant E316, Vitamin A, and D3, and zinc. And made in Ghana. Who said we are a developing country?

And a kebab at Gold Coast (opposite Afrikiko, Accra (but by car, you have to drive around and come in from the back) now costs 15 GHC, one dolla.

Lydia...

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