Category: Fashion

IF you are looking for the hottest clothing, something special and simple that fits, then the button-up shirt  are the things to go for.  We definitely think of our button-ups shirt as basics in our wardrobe, but there are plenty of not-so-basic ways to wear them.

What we really love about this type of shirt is that it’s flexible enough to team up with most types of pants and shoes. Especially a simple shirt can be worn as part of a conservative office work outfit or for parties.

You can dress it up for work or parties, or dress it down for casual everyday wear. Just put on your sophisticated dress shirt at daytime and spice it off with a trendy jacket later that evening. It has almost everything you can ever wish in a shirt, and that’s why we consider a button up shirt to be one of your most important wardrobe essentials.

Don’t forget that some of your basic ready-to-go button up shirt can be revamped and revived into fresh new stunners. Whether it’s through a little layering, adding a fun new belt around the waist of your shirt, or draping on the jewels, it’s easy to spice up with button up shirts!

ANOTHER oldies throwback is returning as the new trend to love! Re-invention is the foundation of the fashion industry, and in 2018, the halter neckline is one of the fashion trends that have been getting alteration.

Halter neck fashion. It’s the easiest formula for a put-together look. Whether it is colourful or subtle, there are plenty of ladies who love this look. Halter neck dress is a fashion trend that you wouldn’t want to miss. It is classy and sexy.

AS we all know, hair is the most important part of the body when it comes to fashion. No one can look really fashionable without the trendiest hairdo (hairstyle). However, the rainy months always, the hair in the most unpleasant way. Just spending some few minutes in the rain can ruin your stylish hairdo and make nonsense of your appearance. So, smart women know that the best thing to do is to prepare for this season of the year. Keep a travellers’ hairdryer in your office. Knot your long hair when you are on the run, secure your hair with shower cap and avoid gels during this season, as they could become messy.

Ideal hairdos for this rainy season

Single plaits (million braids)

The ideal hairdo for this rainy season is corncrow and single plait. Single plaits are the million braids, which people generally refer to as braids. It could be twisted hair, or you could have your natural hair woven; if you need to braid, check the texture of your hair. This will determine the kind of braid or hair you are going to do, the weight of the attachment could make the hair fall off if your braids tracking are very tight.

Corncrow weave

This  needs low maintenance and it could actually survive any weather. You can’t predict when rain will fall. Basically, all you need to do (for this) is to blow dry after you have been soaked. In fact, if it’s not much, it will dry off on its own and you will still have your hairstyle.

Wigs-Wigs are good, but they have to be synthetic wigs. Why synthetic wigs? We have the human hair and the synthetic hair wigs. The synthetic wig is made from mono-fabric fibres (not human hair) and they have low maintenance costs. You don’t have to blow dry a synthetic wig nor thong it. So it is more or less a wake-up-and-go hairdo.

Low-cut-Long hair is great to have, but it can be strenuous, hard and tedious to deal with at times. Short hair can be better managed even if they get wet. So it is better to have a haircut, short hair can be dried quickly and combing it is easier than wet long hair.

THESE days, stylishly cut shirt dress is a must-have for women of style, who need to look classy and different. This well-tailored dress shirt is another ladies’ fashion wear that have come to stay. The length and style of the shirt dress may vary but the style remains the same.

In order to look gorgeous and stay up in the world of fashion, celebs are stepping out with catchy and stunning designs of shirt dresses.

For trendy casual occasions, shirtdress is now used more than any other trend; as a fashion trend, it is evergreen. It never completely leaves the scene even though it may disappear for short periods, it always stages a comeback.

There is one passion the founder and CEO of Heritage Education for Youths and Little Weavers, Iniobong Obinna-Onunkwo cannot compromise: encouraging culture awakening among people and to empower the minds of the youths about their cultural and rich African heritage. In this interview with Kehinde Oluleye, she speaks about her love life and the importance of culture as an ingredient of daily lifestyle.

WHAT inspired this campaign for Africa heritage?

I have traveled wide. And whenever I meet with people from other countries, I’m at the point of shedding tears. I have met with Germans, Venezuelans and Australians. The way they talk about their culture is very interesting. At such moments, when I talk about Nigeria, the only thing they connect with about the country is Kanu Nwankwo and I find myself telling  them that Nigeria has more than that. They want to learn more about us. But who is celebrating it? It goes beyond wearing Buba and Iro. When I dress the African way and talk to them about Nigeria and we now extend our discussions to other African countries like Ghana and Cameroun they are all ears. They love our outfit and admire the colourful combination. At such moments, they say they would love to visit Africa because all they hear are things like lion and tigers all over Africa.

Tell us more about the work you are doing with youths?

The objective of the foundation is to empower the minds of the youths about their cultural and African heritage, and, of course, to educate the global village to change their perspective of African heritage as well as revolutionize the entire cultural thing when it comes to Africa. We want to indigenise Africa. We want to make people feel that Africa has arrived and we are here to stay. African children should be able to wear our denim and afrocentric tops. I did presentations in two schools recently. I called it Heritage Friday. I told them instead of wearing the children jerseys, tell them to wear any bottom of your choice and wear an afrocentric (ankara) top. That morning the kids could do a five-to-10-minute presentation about a particular country. We need to start embracing it from the grassroots.

This is going to be a huge task. So, how do you intend to achieve this?

We have a lot of programmes that we have set-up. We have the Minimi Show. The idea is for educationists to come on board and talk to parents about embracing the African culture/African heritage not just in line with the Nigerian culture. It goes beyond that because in schools we have people that celebrate other African countries and you hear people talking about different costumes like: Massai Warrior and they want to dress like the South African Zulu, Zimbabwean, and Ghanaian; it goes beyond that. The idea of the mini-mi show is for the mothers and the children to wear the same African outfits. The kids should be able to talk about why they really love Africa, what is so intriguing about Africa, what they understand about Africa, African presidents, African history and so forth. That is why everywhere I am, you find something afrocentric around me.

We also have the educational package. We travelled last year to Ogbunike cave in Anambra. The idea is to take such trips anytime around Nigeria and sub-African countries. And the idea is to let people know that there are certain places of tourism in Nigeria and Africa that people don’t know exists. People spend millions of naira visiting tourist’s attraction places in the western world. How about those places in Africa? Where are the tourist areas or sites where people could build hotels to accommodate tourists? We need to commercialize those places like Egbunike cave and employ tour guides. We are talking about bringing cultural awareness and commercialising the area.

The other aspect is academy. We have little wavers academy where the children come and do a lot of African arts and crafts, tailoring etc. the idea of it is to trickle into kidpreneurship.

What is Kidpreneurship all about?

The idea is to empower the mind of the children. It is about catching kids young, and grooming their interests in entrepreneurship and harnessing the potentials to become great entrepreneurs. Today, these children may not need their mum to fix a button that falls off their close. They could do a fashion project or something stylish. The idea is to empower the mind of the children. The final aspect is training the community. We want to set up a community where the young ones can come together, do some training, we have a market place and encourage people to come and buy their wares. We want to empower the women as well as the youths. Imagine if we have that around different zones in Lagos and it spreads outside Lagos, and from Nigeria, it becomes a pan-African thing.

Where are you getting these young people from?

Through school and social media, media houses and we are writing proposal to the ministry of education. We will go to schools to engage both the children and their teachers. We target primary schools because I believe education is key, especially at that level. Because by the time we educate and empower them, then social media won’t influence them so much anymore. We also intend having an academy for them where they would undergo language classes, art illustrations, pattern cutting, sewing and so much more. It is a total package, and we have schools that are interested. And we also aim to talk to the ministry of education to have some of these packages in school curriculums.

Any memorable experience while growing up?

I had the opportunity to meet with ambassadors from other countries; we discussed with them, and usually they have this festival where other countries come with their native foods. We have native Nigerian meals too. Funny enough, they seemed tired with their local pastas, pastries and rice, and you would see them coming to the Nigerian stands to sample Edikaikong and Egusi soups.

Rachel Okonkwo is a Nollywood actress, singer and property entrepreneur. In this interview with Yetunde Oladeinde, she talks about her humble beginning, achievements, challenges and more.

HOW you got into acting and what it was like at the beginning of your career?

Life as an actress has been very interesting and exciting for me. I must say that the experience wasn’t exciting at the beginning and things were not going the way I expected it to be then. So, after acting in about 7 movies I had to stop because the experience wasn’t encouraging.

I was disappointed at that point but I still didn’t give up. I thought of what next to do and another opportunity came my way. I joined the music industry as a dancer and found it also very interesting. That was a great inspiration and motivation for me.  I danced and danced until people started calling me ‘ote egwu’ because I appeared in most gospel music videos in the market

then. That gave me the courage that I needed and I went back to Nollywood and continued acting until the movie ‘Nkoli Nwa Nsukka’ came and gave me the breakthrough that I needed.

Were your parents in support?

I lost my father at the age of 13 and so he was not there at that point. On her part, my mother did not support my acting career initially because she felt I was not on the right track. So, at that point, she was really disappointed with me. But after a while she switched from being disappointed and she became my biggest fan and supporter. Her prayers and that of my siblings and fans actually keep me going.

Apart from acting, what are the other things that occupy your time?

I am into property management. I buy and sell properties. There are lots of opportunities in the sector and it has brought out the entrepreneur in me. All you need is to be determined, focused and know where you want to be in the sector.

What was your early life experience?

Looking back now, I must say that growing up was not rosy at all. Perhaps, this could be traced to the fact that I lost my father early in life. There were so many hurdles to cross but I was really determined to make it against all odds. It was really tough and I remembered that I hawked corn, groundnut and did all kinds of menial jobs just to survive. At that point, I wasn’t even looking at the tough times; all I saw was the determination to help my family. In spite of everything that I went through, I made up my mind that I was never going to lose focus.

What was the dream at the beginning? Did you see yourself becoming this popular?

Not really, I didn’t imagine it will be this way. Even though I always believed in myself, I must confess that fame actually took me by surprise. I give God all the glory.

Let’s talk about some memorable moments as an actress?

There are so many memorable moments and they all encourage me to keep pressing forward. One of my best moments during the shooting of a movie titled Nkoli Nwa Nsukka season five and six. Interestingly, we got to the location; I was amazed at the crowd that flooded the place. It got to a point where the people refused to go and they did not allow me to shoot because they had seen the other movies and were excited to see me live. I never knew I had become that popular and had a lot of people who admire me so much. In fact, I ran back inside the car and started crying, though it was actually tears of joy.

What do your fans mean to you?

They mean a lot to me and I appreciate them for always being there for me. As for the stubborn male fans, I try to manage them very well because I also see them as my well wishers. The truth of the matter is that without people like them, we won’t feel appreciated. I also pray for them all the time. God will always bless my fans for me.

There are also a few embarrassing moments and I think they are all part of the excitement. I remember a day that I came out of my car to make some enquiries and on noticing I was the one, the young man jumped up and kissed me right on my lips. Interestingly, this actually happened in traffic; there were so many people around and people saw it. I can’t forget that day in a hurry. I felt so embarrassed that and I felt like disappearing from the scene. Anyway, I had to accept that it was one of those things.

What inspires the things that you do?

A lot of things give me inspiration for the things that I do. First, I am inspired by God, children as well as the love for humanity. I must say that nothing gives me joy like touching lives positively. One principle that I hold onto is to be myself. I don’t like to copy others because I strongly believe in myself. Life is about contributing your quota, touching lives and leaving a good legacy behind.

What do you do to give back to the society?

If you take a look around today, you would see that there is so much that you can do for your society. So, I would say that this is something that really excites me. Recently, we had a project that was aimed at reaching out to the society. It was called Nkoli Nwa Nsukka Children’s Easter Carnival.

The event is actually a big carnival where we have not less than 20,000 kids in attendance. There are lots of gifts such as bicycles, school bags, food items, clothes, books and other writing materials for the young ones and you can imagine the excitement that you bring to their faces and their lives every time you do this for them.

For me, this is one of the ways that I have chosen to give back to the society. It is also my own way of appreciating all that God has been doing for in my life.

So the project is actually meant for children alone?

Yes. The program primarily focuses on the children but because their parents and siblings usually bring them to the arena, they also join and together, we have fun and virtually everyone in attendance goes home with gift items. The next edition of the program is likely to be in Lagos.

Tell us about your definition of an ideal man?

Personally, I would say that my definition of an ideal man is somebody who understands me more than all the men in the world. It has to be someone who understands the nature of my job and he must be hard working. He must also have the fear of God in him. The truth of the matter however is that no man is perfect but, I give kudos to those men who really try.

Where do you hope to be in the next five years?

At that point, I hope to go into movie production. But right now, I want to concentrate on my acting career because this is something that I am very passionate about.

Tell us about some people that you admire in the industry and what you like about them?

I have some people who are doing very well and I admire them for the things they do and the personality they project. I looked up to Genevieve at the beginning of my career, and still look up to her because she has lasted in the industry, and is still holding it down. She is indeed an icon. I also love and respect Tonto Dike very much. She is strong and passionate about her career. I can’t forget her words of encouragement the first time I worked with her, it really helped me to forge ahead. Funke Akindele is another actress that I admire so much. She is in her own world and I respect her for that. There is also Angelina Jolie whom I see as a role model too.

Did you ever encounter sexual harassment at your early stage?

No, I have not. It is not the way people talk about it.

What makes you cry?

Worship songs because they remind me of God’s goodness in my life. I can be so emotional with such songs.

How do you deal with betrayal in a relationship?

Naturally, I was heartbroken but I moved on. I picked up the pieces of my heart and moved on. You know how it feels watching someone you cherish so much leave you probably for another girl. But thank God I have moved on and someone better has taken his place in my heart.

What do you think should be done to move the sector forward?

There is so much that needs to be done and the most important thing is that we need more investors. Funding has been a major challenge for many who have brilliant ideas that they cannot push forward. Marketing is another challenge but I believe that with proper funding and monitoring of the market, we can take the industry to the next level.

Of course, there are so many who have remained steadfast in the game and I say a big thank you to them for their dedication, courage and determination. There is no doubt about the fact that the industry keeps getting better by the day.