MARAYAH O presents ALPHA SWAN COLLECTION

If its anything to go by, the new Alpha Swan collection of Marayah O is Uber fab.
The collection encapsulates the dictates of the season - Bright , Fun, Happy and Sassy .

NEWS:Fashion Lounge Presents – Fashion Networking Party

Fashion Lounge – A Fashion Networking Party is the brainchild of Rachael Taiwo-Akingbade and Kemi Akande, Rachael and Kemi both have several years of experience in the fashion and events industry. Rachael owns Lavish Lingerie Couture and Kemi owns Inspirebusinessworld.com – The duo have cooked up an opportunity for those in the fashion industry to network and gain exposure.

The event is scheduled to take place each month, however, the big launch which will be televised by MTV Base on Thursday 28th July at Lagos’ newest hot spot Chrome.

The event is going to be flowing with celebrities, models, modelling agencies, celebrity stylists, media tycoons, make-up artists, photographers and beauty and fashion magazines and other fashion industry professional. The launch will be spectacular and this will be the most exclusive night Lagos has ever seen! Don’t miss out on an opportunity to meet and socialize with the right mix of people to further your interests and aspirations within the world of fashion.

There is already a waiting list for designers wanting to participate in the event and only 2 designers can showcase every month…so make sure you get on the waiting list asap! Fashion designers are encouraged to come along with models displaying their designs.

Lagos’ hottest DJ’s will be setting the ambiance and early entry is well advised as the event will be kicking off from 7pm, with free lavish cocktails being served before 8pm.
“Your Network is your Net Worth”!

Fashion Lounge – Fashion Networking Party
Launch Date: Thursday 28th July 2011
Frequency: Monthly (The Last Thursday of Every Month)
Time: 7PM – Late
Address: Chrome (Former Tribeca) 82, Adetokunbo Ademola St, Victoria Island, Lagos, Nigeria
 Invited individuals, collectives and representatives attending and welcome include: Models – Photographers – Fashion Designers – Make-Up Artists – Fashion Stylists – Modeling Agencies – Magazine & Fashion Editors – Press & PR-Beauty and fashion retailers. (Color bands will be given to help network and differentiate between sectors)

UCHE JOMBO’S ‘DAMAGE’ PREMIERES THIS SUNDAY

Why is there so much violence where love is obtainable? Does the
husband have monopoly of violence in the home? Who suffers the most
from all the violence? These were the outlined questions that defined
‘Damage’ a new movie by Nollywood sultry actress and producer Uche
Jombo, which addresses societal ills to its roots without losing its
cue for entertainment.
All set to be premiered on July 31st, 2011 at the Silverbird Galleria
in Lagos, ‘Damage’ features Nollywood finest, Uche Jombo, Kalu
Ikeagwu, Tonto Dikeh, Basorge Tariah Jr and others.
The thrilling movie ‘Damage’, tells the story of love and the pain of
domestic violence with a style that projects the subject as one that
has not been threaded before in a movie. A man (Kalu Ikeagwu) and his
wife (Uche Jombo) love each other immensely yet their day to day life
can only be described as a ‘cat and mouse’ situation. They fight
violently almost on a daily basis and one of the long run effects of
their fights is the psychological torture their children had to go
through.
Talks have it that the premiere is going to be another Nollywood grand
affair as all the Nollywood stakeholders have been invited.
However, the journey of the movie has not been a short one at all, as
its opening scene was accompanied by a Recognition Awards for young
Nigerian entertainment brands like MI, AY, AKI and PAWPAW, TUFACE,
OUCH, Young Designer Coco Couture, Emem Isong, Funke Akindele,
Bellanaija, Ice Prince and others.
Beyond ‘Damge’, the story extends to ‘My life my Damage’ and ‘My
Country their Damage’ altogether known as the Damage movies; making it
a collection of three distinct but interwoven stories, aimed at
advocacy for social issues. Each story addresses important problems
affecting individuals, families and societies at large.
Speaking on the movie Uche Jombo said, ‘The Damage movies are unique
and stands to correct societal ills, but beyond the storyline and
qualitative nature of the movies, I am of the opinion that I am a
Nigerian brand, and anything I do, represents Nigeria in one way or
the other, so I cannot afford to compromise the ideal standard of a
movie while hiding under the ‘anything goes’ guise. We had the best of
hands from the cast to the crew and the result is highly encouraging’.

Checkout Da Brat's New Look

Unbelivable !!!Is this Da Brat? The rapper, who first rose to fame in the 90s, was recently featured in a shoot for Vibe Magazine.
With a head full of curly locks, light makeup and defined brows, Da Brat is an undeniable beauty. The fashion adds to her new softer, more Bohemian look with maxidresses, ivory-hued tunics and bold jewelry.

It can be remembered that Da Brat was sentenced to three years in prison back in 2008when she was charged with hitting a woman in the face with a alcohol bottle at Missy’s Birthday party. Da Brat, real name Shawntae Harris, was arguing with a waitress/model named Shala Stevens working at JD’s Club 72, when a fight broke out and Da Brat ended up hitting Stevens with a bottle of rum. Stevens suffered lacerations to her cheek and swelling to her forehead. In Stevens lawsuit she says she suffered permanent disfigurement and mental distress as a result of the attack.
Then and Now pics after the break 

Before

Now

Nicki Minaj and Ricky Martin Named The New Face of MAC Viva Glam

Beauty giant MAC Cosmetics just named Nicki Minaj and Ricky Martin the newest MAC Viva Glam spokesmodels according to The Glamazons.
The Latin crooner and Young Money rapstress are shooting ads today with famed photographer David La Chapelle and the campaign is slated to debut in February 2012.
With a successful lipstick deal for Pink Friday with MAC under her belt, we’re proud to see Nicki Minaj nail her first major beauty advertising campaign with the same company. Handsome singer Ricky Martin, who recently and proudly announced that he is gay, is an ideal spokesperson for the campaign as well and a testament to MAC’s dedication to diversity and inclusion.

Well what do you say? Nicki - we get but Ricky ? Is it because he is Gay?

NORWAY TERROR SUSPECTS TRIAL BEGINS

OSLO – (AFP) – The 32-year-old Norwegian suspected of killing as many as 93 people in a bombing and shooting rampage arrived Monday early afternoon in a closed Oslo courtroom for his first remand hearing.
Anders Behring Breivik entered the hearing, state news agency NTB said, after being driven in through the basement of the downtown Oslo courthouse, a security official also said.
Norway gunman in closed court hearing as nation falls silent
Norway fell silent on Monday for the victims of a bombing and shooting spree as the man accused of carrying out the killings was to appear at a closed hearing before a court in Oslo.
As the nation struggled to absorb the impact of its worst postwar tragedy, thousands of people bowed their heads in silence outside Oslo’s main university at a ceremony led by Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg and King Harald V.
“To remember the victims who died at the government’s headquarters and on the island of Utoeya, I declare a minute of silence,” said Stoltenberg on the stroke of midday before he then opened a book of condolence.
The country’s train stations closed and the stock market halted trading. Nordic neighbours Sweden, Finland, Denmark and Iceland also held a minute’s silence and flew national flags at half-mast.
“It was an attack against the very values that our countries are built upon. It was an attack against all of us,” said Danish Prime Minister Lars Loekke Rasmussen.
Anders Behring Breivik has already confessed to the killings but denied criminal responsibility, according to his lawyer.
The 32-year-old was to make his first appearance in a downtown court around 1:00 pm (1100 GMT), for arraignment over Friday’s car bombing and mass shooting that he said he had planned over a long time and executed single-handedly.
A court official said that the judge had ordered the hearing to take place behind closed doors, against Behring Breivik’s wishes.
“The meeting will be closed to the public and the press,” the official said.
Behring Breivik’s lawyer Geir Lippestad said earlier that his client had two wishes: “The first is that the hearing is public, and the second is that he may attend in uniform.”
A statement from the court indicated that the prosecutor, Christian Hatlo, would demand a doubling of the normal maximum four-week custody period.
“The prosecutor will ask for eight weeks of custody for Anders Behring Breivik,” the court said in a statement.
Before the attack, Behring Breivik wrote a 1,500-page manifesto, datelined London. He boasted he was one of up to 80 “solo martyr cells” recruited across Western Europe to topple governments tolerant of Islam, it said, adding that Scotland Yard was now trying to establish if he had recently visited London.
At least seven people died in an initial car bombing outside the prime minister’s office, in a calculated distraction for police allowing Behring Breivik to shoot scores of youngsters attending a summer camp on the island of Utoeya, 40 kilometres away (25 miles).
The official toll from the island currently stands at 86 although police have said the figure could be revised downwards.
Names and photographs are to be released shortly of those who died, including offspring of senior ruling party figures.
An emotional Stoltenberg said the full extent of the “evil” perpetrated last Friday would emerge when the victims’ names and their photographs are released.
Stoltenberg addressed a solemn memorial service attended by Norway’s royal family and thousands of worshippers on Sunday.
The premier has said he knew personally many of the dead while the tragedy also struck right at the heart of Norway’s royal family. It emerged Monday that the half-brother of Norway’s Princess Mette-Marit — an off duty policeman — was one of the victims of the gun attack.
Behring Breivik currently has only the status of “official suspect,” meaning he will not learn actual charges until the investigation is concluded with police still hunting for possible accomplices.
But the attacks have triggered calls for Norway to reinstate the death penalty. The maximum prison sentence in Norway is 21 years, meaning — if found guilty — the accused could be awarded just 82 days per killing.
Behring Breivik acknowledged in his tract that he would be deemed a “monster,” but said it was designed to end a centuries-long Muslim colonisation of Europe.
Although he told investigators he acted alone, prosecutors stressed they had yet to uncover a motive — despite the manifesto claims.
Part diary, bomb-making manual and Islamophobic rant, the tract details the self-styled Knight Templar’s “martyrdom operation” including a call for believers to spawn as many children as possible in order to generate a pool of future fighters in a Christian war he likens to a medieval crusade.
During weekend interrogation, Behring Breivik told police that Europe’s deadliest attacks since the 2004 Madrid bombings, carried out by the Al-Qaeda terror network, were “cruel” but “necessary.”
Nevertheless, lawyer Lippestad said his client felt he had done “nothing reprehensible.”
Police have faced loud criticism over the hour it took them to reach the island, during which victims — some shot again in the head to make sure they were dead, according to witnesses — died at a rate of more than one per minute.

NEXT NEWSPAPER REVIEW ON MIRROR BOY-THE LATEST MOVIE FEATURING GENEVIEVE NNAJI AND OSITA IHEME

Need we say more? NEXT Newspaper’s verdict on the most anticipated movie of 2011, MIRROR BOY (featuring Genevieve Nnaji and Osita Iheme):

[caption id="attachment_6441" align="alignleft" width="319" caption="Obi Emelonye"][/caption]

It may be tempting to say, ‘Well, what's the hullabaloo about? Yet another film made by a Nigerian filmmaker abroad. Is this supposed to be another movie in the ranks of ‘Ije' ‘The Figurine' and ‘Anchor Baby' made to challenge questions like, ‘Can anything good really come out of Nollywood?' Perhaps it is.

‘Mirror Boy', shown at a press screening at Ozone Cinemas, Lagos on Tuesday July 19, did say a lot of things in a seemingly effortless way. It's no mean feat telling a story, creating memorable characters and capturing an audience in the space of an hour and a half. Nonetheless, Tijan, the main character in ‘Mirror Boy', was intriguing enough to captivate. The film also says something about the number of young talents that abound around us, if filmmakers were painstaking and determined enough to seek them out. Although Edward Kagutuzi, who plays Tijan, is a UK-based actor of Ugandan descent, recent debut performances by some young Nigerian talents attest to this. (See Tunde Kelani's ‘Maami'.)

 

Kagutuzi as Tijan

Obi Emelonye, who directed ‘Mirror Boy', noted that Kagutuzi "brought an adult view in interpreting the script and that paid off for him because he was nominated as best young actor at AMAA." It's not too much to say that Emelonye was lucky to find a young man from whose worldview and point of view the story is told, making him an important aspect of it.

From London to The Gambia (where most of the movie was set and shot), Tijan and his mother, played by actress Genevieve Nnaji, make a trip which translates into more than a physical journey for Tijan because blood beckons to him.

Enter Osita Iheme's character, the mirror boy himself; with eerie-looking teeth and laughter and a retinue of proverbs, philosophy and wisecracks which even a street-wise London boy like Tijan finds arresting.

It's rare to find Iheme, one half of the comic Nollywood duo Aki (Chinedu Ikedezie) and Paw Paw in a solo performance. However he goes it alone in ‘Mirror Boy' and it's amazing how he manages to hold his own.

The journey is an arduous one for Tijan but he does make it home. We get a bit of the sights and sounds of the West African country of Gambia; from the teeming markets to the desert tribes, the urbane and the rustic and idiosyncrasies similar to ours, lending support to Emelonye's assertion that the film was intended to mirror what is homogenous about Africa; cultural homogeneity, the way we think and what our taboos are.

 

Symbolising the source

‘Mirror Boy' delves into deep mystic terrain almost unapologetically and some questions raised during the press screening expressed disapproval at what seemed like the exoticisation of Africa and African cultures in the film. This comes to particular focus in a scene in which Tijan and Iheme's character run into a savage bush tribe with overtly ‘exotic' costumes and body paints and a taste for human flesh.

It is quite an issue that all that the West wants to see about Africa is poverty, wars and civil unrest and undue mysticism and it is disheartening when Africans themselves pander to and fuel these demands.

African cultures make no bones about the fact that their roots are firmly entrenched in the supernatural and Emelonye explores this in ‘Mirror Boy', with the metaphor of the umbilical cord which goes beyond the tie that binds mother and child to symbolise the source, the root.

It's a free-for-all; spirits live and wander in forests, in markets as well as even homes. Evil and scheming women with no physical might can send the strongest of men crashing to the floor with a touch of their hands; and murder need not be a messy bloody affair, for the littlest of pressure applied on an effigy can asphyxiate a living equivalent.

 

Not a romantic picture

Well, Emelonye seems to think that "the film is not really meant to paint a romantic picture of Africa, especially from the point of view of a London-bred boy. We wanted to make it as brutal as possible so that when he grows to love the place he is not really loving the permanent light or the permanent security. What he falls in love with is the natural connection. The umbilical cord is a symbol there."

The director adds that "[the film] shows that Africa has its own beauty and we shouldn't be afraid to say we are superstitious people. We shouldn't be afraid to say we are spiritual people. And that's what it is. So it's portraying that spirituality in such a way that we are not ashamed of it."

The storyline is rich in indigenous elements including proverbs and with a sigh of relief there didn't seem to be any incongruence as the story progressed. ‘Mirror Boy' is a good story, one well told, and, in spite of any inadequacies therein, thankfully held together by our protagonist and the spirit man-child: the mirror boy.

 

‘Mirror Boy’ opens in Nigerian cinemas across the country August 5, same day it will be premiered at Silverbird Cinema, Lagos.