By Morenike Taire

As the year draws to a close, an essential part of cleaning up is the cleanup of your wardrobe.  If you’re still wearing last year’s maxis and platform heels, you most probably require an update now. Trending now are:-

Leggings
They appear to be here to stay, and not necessary in black or in plain colours as was traditional but in refreshing golds and silvers, as well as bright colours and blings. These essentials work well for the day as well as the night look and are far more versatile than they have ever been.

The Peplum
For that structured, traditional look, the peplum has become huge. The 50s trend has showed up in nearly every collection recently and ought to show up in your wardrobe. The classic peplum has morphed into strapless, lace, short, skirt, and a million bright colours.

Oleku
The short sleeves and hemlines of the traditional iro and buba of the 70s has been resuscitated by the Tunde Kelani film, Oleku, seeing a trend that is catching on at such a dizzying pace that it is becoming a wardrobe essential. If Owambes and church/mosque services are your thing, oleku is a must-have.

Colour block lips
We have had colour blocking in dresses and shoes for seasons now, but we are now seeing the same trend in hair and lips. Bold reds, oranges and turquoises are just some of the hues you will see of today’s colour block lipsticks.

Print shirt
The shirt dress is back, but that’s not the big deal. The big deal is that the shirt, classic as it is, is still very much around. Aim towards a couple of print shirts. They are richly coloured, classy, and of course, print, in fabrics as sophisticated as silk, simple as nylon or classic as cotton. They will surely enrich your closet, for the casual or official look.

They came, they saw, they fell in love

Love works in mysterious ways, they say, and this can be said to be responsible for the attraction between two people who otherwise had very little in common.

In fact, in the case of the Solarins and the Wengers, it was more a case of falling in love with a people, a culture, a place:  Yorubaland.

It has been said that the legend of Tai Solarin would not have been complete without his wife and life partner Sheila. The reality is, it would never have happened without her.

Sheila Solarin

Indeed the memory of the old Marxist Tai Solarin might not have lived had his wife not stayed true to their joint dreams and aspirations. Her death, two years after that of Susan Wenger, who spent her life studying Yoruba traditional medicine and divination, marks the end of a certain era.

Both Sheila and Susan, because of their love and devotion to it, came to a place whose inhabitants are disenchanted by it and made it home, being able to see the good in what we took for granted; taking it, and doing something positive with it.

Statistics
Adolescent pregnancy often results in adverse maternal and neonatal health outcomes. In this context, a new study in East Africa suggests low use of contraception and high rates of maternal mortality rate make preventing unwanted pregnancies critical.

60.3% – Percentage of University female students reported that they were sexually active

18.6% –  The number of students studied who did not use contraception in their last sexual encounter. -16
The average age at which students made their sexual debut