Inspired by the world history generations of women and androgyny artworks, the Love April’s collection plays on the mixture of masculinity and femininity. Our exaggerated seam-lines emphasis our cling to modern culture. Our true, bare, chic necklines keep us in the realm of ancients. Our abstracted textured prints will ultimately immortalize the classic style and feel of a woman.

GALLERY AFTER THE JUMP

Photographed: isOfoe Amegavie
Model: Afua Asona
Contact: ninaloveapril@gmail.com  // patriciayeboah@gmail.com
Instagram: loveaprilgh

After taking a look at Edun’s ‘African Shower’ campaign for Spring Summer 2013, Edun and Ryan McGinley introduces their next installment with the limited edition t-shirt for charity. Featuring the Wild African Elephant, it highlights the danger of the illegal ivory trade. READ MORE

Goldman Supply Co. is a casual menswear brand based in Lagos, Nigeria. All its products are sourced and supplied locally and their add African print elements to their cotton tees and tanks. Buy them online  and offline by appointment 0812932304 (Nigeria Only). Thier debut spring/summer 2012 collection features tanks, shorts sleeve tshirts and 3/4 sleeve baseball tshirts finished waxed fabric(Ankara) pockets and fold-up patches.

GALLERY AFTER THE JUMP

The Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 promised to be a great tablet : letting you edit documents or draw with a pen and even do true multitasking by splitting the screen into two halves and using both to do things at the same time. All the while it being a tablet and doing things that a tablet should do. The Galaxy Note 10.1 did all these things but it continued to lack in certain areas like software and lagging etc. But after months of angry feedback Samsung has come back with a smaller version of the Galaxy Note 10.1 to deal with the problems and compete with the iPad mini. This is the story of the Samsung Galaxy Note 8.0.

BODY

As usual with Samsung this iteration is plastic built. Yes it doesn’t feel like a premium device but it’s not flimsy either. The Galaxy Note 8.0 is very tightly built, solid, all glossy white and at 12 ounces and a little under 8mm thick, it’s thin and light enough to be easily held in one hand and the slightly wider bezels also ensures easy handling. Below the screen we find a physical Home button with two capacitive buttons for Menu and Back. On the right side, a power button, volume rocker and the IR blaster. The left side features only a micro SD slot. On top we have a headphone jack and on the bottom two speakers plus a Micro USB port and the S Pen slot.

SCREEN, CAMERA AND AUDIO

The Galaxy Note 8.0 comes with an 8-inch screen and a display of 1280 x 800 which is not the best out there but good enough for now considering tablets with similar resolutions were released a few months earlier and their next generation are going to be outfitted with better, high-res screen in the near future. But the Galaxy Note 8. 0 has great viewing angles and very vivid, contrasted colors.

The Galaxy Note 8.0 comes outfitted with a 5-megapixel rear-facing camera and a 1-megapixel front-facing camera. Both cameras are lackluster in performance when compared even with phones released in the last three years. The pictures usually have slight distortions, slow shutter speeds in bad conditions and washed-out videos.

The audio quality is not quite as good as the Galaxy Note 10.1. The two speakers are neither loud nor very good and since it is used mostly in landscape mode you’ll not get the stereo sound feel out of it.

OTHER SPECS

The Galaxy Note 8.0 has a speedy quad core Exynos 4412 processor at 1.6GHz, with 2GB of RAM, 16GB of internal storage which can be boosted by up to 64GB of microSD card. It also supports Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 4.0 and GPS but no NFC. The international version of the tablet offers cellular connectivity for making voice calls, sending and receiving SMS and MMS.

The Galaxy Note 8.0 runs on a heavily-skinned Android 4.1.2 Jellybean which makes it really fast and comes with a slew of Samsung customizations such as Awesome Note HD, ChatOn Samsung’s messaging app, Game Hub, Music Hub, Paper Artist( a sketching program), S Voice etc.

Battery life was quite disappointing as it lasted the shortest(5 hours, 30 minutes) when compared to the Amazon Kindle Fire HD (7 hours), iPad mini (7 hours, 37 minutes) and the Nexus & (10 hours, 50 minutes). All in all the Galaxy Note 8.0 will give you a day or a day and half depending on the heaviness of the usage.

THE S PEN

This is perhaps the most outstanding feature of the Galaxy Note 8.0. The S Pen is a plastic stylus with a button on top of it which wakes the screen when it is pulled out of it’s slot. The S Pen is great for taking handwritten notes on the tablet for old-school people and also draw or sketch on the go which will appeal particularly to artists as not other tablet can give the satisfaction the Galaxy Note 8.0 does.

CONCLUSION

Overall a good tablet for those who want productivity, a bit of browsing and reading from their tablets. It is priced at a premium $399.99, it’s quite steep considering the other range of tablets with the same size but it offers more.

Andrea Iyamah presents its 2013 swimwear collection showing a mixture of daring colours, prints, pastels  and unique cuts. The collection  was inspired by the piercing fun personality of the designer’s father and was named after him, Late Mr. Andy Nkwor Iyamah. Showcasing the ethnic vibe with a modern twist, the “Nkwor” swimwear collection is perfect for every girl with every body shape, you just need to find the one that flatters your assets and hides your flaws. Really impressed with the collection, its tres sexy.

GALLERY AFTER THE JUMP

Google Apps || realitypod.com

What will happen to your Gmail, YouTube, Google Drive and Google+ accounts after you die? That’s probably not something you really want to think about, but as more and more of our data now lives online, that’s sadly a question that comes up with some regularity. Today, Google is launching its Inactive Account Manager on the Google Account settings page, which sets out to set up a system that allows you to tell Google “what you want done with your digital assets when you die or can no longer use your account.” With the Inactive Account Manager, you can set up a very straightforward procedure for what should happen to your data after your account becomes inactive “for any reason.” First, you set up a timeout period (three, six, nine or twelve months of inactivity). After that, you can either have all of your data deleted, or you can select a number of trusted contact who can receive your data from a set of Google services. FULL STORY

Lucilla Booyzen || mg.co.za

Lucilla Booyzen, the founder of South African Fashion Week (SAFW), which was launched in 1996, never had any formal training in fashion but grew up in a family where chic and elegance were lifestyle fundamentals. She was a high school teacher before being spotted by a model agency, which probably explains why she puts her focus and energy not only into launching designers’ collections but also teaching them to become business savvy. Despite the fact that the South African calendar offers enough fashion weeks for designers to showcase their work, Booyzen feels that the industry is still running short of appropriate support and is not making the right impact. FULL STORY

Studio 29 boutique, an extension of the highly successful Africa Fashion Week London (AFWL) brand is set to open its doors to Lagos fashionistas from Sunday 14th April 2013.  The first of a series of concession stores in Lagos,  African Fashion Week London, the biggest African themed fashion event in Europe launches Studio 29 as a response to demand for the exclusive pieces featured in its runway events.

Eva Alordiah smoulders in a series of playful and sultry poses in pieces from award winning AsakeOge brand stocked at Studio 29. Wearing limited edition pieces from casual to evening to occasion the gorgeous rapper embodies the spirit of the AFWL brand: fabulous, black and beautiful.

Opening at 29 Opebi road, Ikeja, a Lekki branch right after and then the prestigious Oxford Street, London branch opening later in the year, the Studio 29 boutique will be stocking the best of African fashion from African designers around the world. With London-based multiple award winning brands like Adebayo Jones and AsakeOge already in store and other exotic pieces from designer brands such as Zebra Living, Ejiro amos Tafiri, Kola Kuddus, Violet Couture, Mademoiselle Aglaia, Nene Kester and more designers signing up every day, the boutique caters to the everyday needs for the modern fashionista. From day to evening, casual to occasion, there’s something for everyone in store. With it’s contemporary deco and furnishing, Studio 29 will also be open for event bookings, fashion tea parties and product press launches.

Africa Fashion Week London is set for 1st-4th August 2013 at the Old Truman Breweries in Shoreditch London  with over 100 designers taking part and 30,000 guests expected in a much bigger affair than the previous edition. AFWL is currently receiving applications from designers across the globe keen to reach an international audience in one of the quirkiest fashion capitals of the world. With other projects in the pipeline such as Nigeria’s Next Top Designer and Face of Africa Fashion Week London. The AFWL brand is pursuing its vision to expose African Fashion to the world.

 DreamCoat Productions is proud to bring In The Deep a web series about four fun-loving best friends who live in the heart of East London, each harbouring secrets of their own.  This is not just another queer web drama series, it’s a story about people, their loves, lives and lies as they go about their daily routine telling stories that we can all relate to; Ade, stuck between two worlds, Nigerian and gay. He lives a double life, hiding his relationships on both ends; Emilia has the confusing ‘thing’ with Riley her straight best friend . The web series consists of eight episodes, but this is  launch of the first two episodes and also of our Indiegogo campaign to help fund the rest of the season. The episodes are directed by Joseph a. Adesunloye and Vins Blake, and the producers is Joy Gharoro-Akpojotor and Joseph a. Adesunloye.

 Hakeem Balogun’s  King Hakbal label’s ethos is all about sartorial elegance, as seen in this collection ……from blue to red pieces , yellow and leopard print, this collection looks to celebrate the young at  heart african man with an eye for fun and colour, pocket squares and bow ties are featured. The resulting look is an extremely dapper man , who isnt afraid of a little splash of colour here and there

GALLERY AFTER THE JUMP

On the trail of successes they have achieved as one of the pioneers of online retail in Nigeria, co-founders of Jumia , Raphael Afaedor and Tunde Kehinde have been featured in April’s edition of Forbes Africa magazine. In this awe-inspiring piece the duo talk to Abisola Owolawi about finding their dream, rising against the odds, their challenges and their rise to building Nigeria’s number 1 online retailer.

In another exciting sequence, the website has grown to be the 5^th local content website in Nigeria and the customer’s number 1 online retailer of choice.

The 10 month retail store has seen exponential growth in size of baskets and traffic to its site. Inadvertently leading to growth in all areas of its operations from staff, fleet, warehousing facilities, to more recently the addition of 3 locations in Warri, Kaduna and Benin; an addition to those existing in Lagos, Abuja and Port-Harcourt.

“As Nigeria’s no.1 online retailer, Jumia will continue to pioneer the Nigerian retail market, with a vision to being the answer to retail both offline and online in sub-Saharan Africa. As a place for direct retail shopping online with limitless reach and audience, we have seen orders come in large numbers from every nook and cranny of Nigeria, and in our commitment to our customers and making good on our promises of on time for delivery, we are gradually expanding and gaining foothold in more cities across Nigeria”, explained co-founders Tunde Kehinde and Raphael Afaedor.

To view article, click here.

With  the smartphone revolution almost over, the advent of wearable technology like the Google glass and smart watches, are on the rise. Smartphones replaced the need to carry individual devices for different purposes like an MP3 player for music and watches for checking the time and date. But watches are being brought back into existence by making them smart. Current smart watches can sync via Bluetooth to Apple and Android smartphones showing the time, date, weather and notifications, all at a glance without touching the phone in your pocket. There is the possibility of  smart watches being stand-alone devices which  can be used to replace a phone.Here are some of the first smart watch offerings with rumors of future ones like the Google, Apple and Firefox watch to follow soon.

NEPTUNE PIN ANDROID SMART WATCH

First stop is the Neptune Pin smart watch which is a bit different from the smart watches around. It comes with it’s own microSim-Card slot which enables a user to make or receive calls, a 2.5 inch Touchscreen display, has a 5-megapixel camera in front and runs a full version of android with an overlay called Leaf  UI.

The smart watch also has Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, GPS with storage ranging from 8 to 32GB. The Neptune Pin smart watch is different in that it can act as a stand-alone device and replace a smartphone. It performs all the functions of a phone like making of calls , browsing etc.

SONY SMARTWATCH

Sony released it’s SmartWatch in 2012. It comes with a micro display of 128 x 128 pixels, 1.3 inch OLED touch display, splash proof screen along with Bluetooth and add-on features like accelerometer, vibrating unit etc.

It can store up to a whopping 255 widgets with most capable of interacting with Android 2.1+ version which is the major point of this watch. The SmartWatch has an operating range of 10 meters.

PEBBLE E-PAPER WATCH

The Pebble E-Paper is also interesting in the sense that once it’s connected to your Iphone or Android smartphone , it alerts you with silent vibration when there is incoming call, email or  a message received and can be dismissed by just the shake of a wrist.

It allows the reading even of email and messages on the device display itself and also comes with internet connected apps which are customizable.

The Pebble E-Paper display is 144 x 168 pixels (Amazon Kindle reader-like), has 4 buttons with 3 axis accelerometer and Bluetooth 2.1. It is a water, scratch and shatter resistant device with anti-glare optical coating.

THE WAY FORWARD?

With rumors of Google, Apple and Firefox releasing their own smart watches, the question is: ARE THEY THE WAY FORWARD? The answer is both YES and NO.

YES, smart watches will be great as secondary add-ons for smartphones.This is where you can take a peek at the time, weather, email alerts, notifications, messages without taking a smartphone out of the pocket. This gives the user to prioritise whatever is incoming and choose to act on it or not. Also music can be changed using the watch since head phones are not giving us that feature. As complementary devices smart watches will be great.

NO, smart watches cannot take the place of  smartphones and act as stand-alone devices in our lives now. Almost everyone who uses a smartphone is used to large display screen phones now and will not like to use a device with small screen since it won’t give the same satisfaction. It will be very impractical for smart watches to have large display screens because it will be worn on the wrist most of the time and will cause discomfort for the wearer.

So depending on the use that smart watches are to be put to, will either make it the way forward or not.

Albertina Amupolo || www.thevillager.com.na

Windhoek — Glamour’s Fashion and Diamond Show was the theme of the fashion show at the National Theatre of Namibia (NTN) on Thursday combining fashion glamour and diamond to shine in the course again gender-based violence. Three designers, Hem Matsi fo Hem Collection fame, Rauna Namuhuya from The Ensembles Collection and the Rachel Creations presented their designs pairing three designers with different styles to highlight the influence that music has on fashion. All the models wore big blonde wigs, which is always good. But the designs were so hot adding more glamour than it was meant to be. From short “Mad-Men” skirts to fetish costumes, the fashion show truly had some classy designs. READ FULL STORY HERE. 

There’s been talk of a Facebook phone for ages… and yesterday Mark Zuckerberg finally made the big reveal… but it turns out it wasn’t quite what we were expecting! Thursday 4th April saw the launch of Facebook Home in Palo Alto – software that puts the social network’s news feed on the home screen of any Android phone. Unlike an app which users have to actively access, Facebook Home will deliver status updates, images and messages straight to home screen of a user’s phone – essentially directly integrating itself into the phone itself. Users will then be able to reply to messages and notifications straight from Facebook Home and will be able to chat by clicking on “Chatheads”, rather than searching for and opening a separate Facebook app. FULL STORY HERE

GALLERY AFTER THE JUMP

It is often said that cultures that do not evolve eventually die out. A cultural evolution took place recently in KwaDukuza (also known as Stanger) a town in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa where the first African traditional gay wedding was held. South Africa remains the only African country that allows gay marriage as others including Nigeria, Uganda and recently The Gambia have shown that being Gay could be a criminal offense.

 Nollywood Actress Kate Henshaw looks stunning for a 40+ Nigerian woman living in Nigeria. Good to know that some Nigerian celebs take their bodies seriously. Kate cover comes after Rita Dominic’s last month making it two months in a row that Nollywood gets front stage in WOW. Peep other exciting editorials and features in the new issue. You don’t wanna miss the Rihanna for River Island piece i wrote for the issue as well….

MORE AFTER THE JUMP

This was done as a concept art for a Coca-cola / UTGP t-shirt design competition. Felt like doing something that’d make everyone that sees it smile… and get excited as the tag implies.

Concept Design | Digital Art & Graphics Design | Architectural Presentation | Animation | Behind the *Seen*. Fun Stuff.

Jacque Amadi runs an online vintage boutique called LIONESS (www.shoplioness.com). LIONESS focuses mainly on the 90′s because due to the founders love of black style around that time. The business is currently expanding and the founder  wants her  new items to reflect not only 90′s trends but also her African (Nigerian) roots. She started this shop last November, not knowing all of the support that she would get…but her shop is growing faster than she can keep up being  run solely and having to cater to its financial need from her own pocket which is increasingly becoming hard as she’s just in college.

For this reason Jaque started an Indiegogo campaign to raise funds for more stock and make more money for school while making my business grow. Support LIONESS on INDIEGOGO