To be sure, I am not a fashionista.  In fact, I know next to nothing about haute couture.  Ever heard of the term “fashion-conscious?”  Well, I have a tendency toward the opposite. I could be classified as one of the “fashion-challenged.” If you ever see me and I look well put together, it’s only because I’m a quick study, and I’ve had nearly five decades to figure out what works and what does not.  And I did that by taking note of the fashion faux pas of others. 

It started when I was 15 and I spotted a young woman wearing a blouse that I’d been saving to buy.  It was the exact colour that I wanted—electric yellow.  For weeks it had been displayed in the JC Penney store window, delicately outfitted on a tall, slender, doe-eyed mannequin with porcelain skin.  This woman, the flesh-and-blood one that I was looking at, was black like me, virtually the same complexion.  The colour of that blouse with the colour of that skin was not a good match.  The woman looked like a giant bicycle reflector.

Oh dear Lord, I thought, that could have been me.  When I got home, I wrote in my journal:  “Never ever, under any circumstances, wear electric yellow.”  Over the years I’ve included other colours.  I’ve also started a journal devoted solely to fashion.  I always carry it with me in my bag.  In it, I paste pictures of clothes I want to have sewn, record my measurements du jour, and jot down the names, addresses and telephone numbers of shops, tailors, and such.

More than anything, though, I use the journal to take note of the big no-nos I observe.  Some of them are mistakes I want to remind myself not to make; others are mysteries, things I simply don’t understand.

Wearing socks with sandals, especially in an equatorial climate, is always a mistake.  As is showing “camel toe” or, in the case of men, going “commando” while wearing trousers which seem to announce that you’re letting it all hang loose.  As is putting on any pastel colour anywhere on your body once you’ve passed the 90-kilos threshold.  (The same goes for Lycra and Spandex.)

Though I will firmly stand my ground on the items I’ve just listed, I will admit that the labelling of some other items as mistakes is purely subjective.  Several years ago, on a flight from Los Angeles to New York, I was seated next to a very lovely young lady who appeared to be wearing every piece of jewellery she owned.

On both hands, there was a ring on each finger, even her thumbs.  She had a ring in her nose, six or seven rings in both ears, from the lobe to the helix.  There was a stud above her lip and above her right eyebrow, and her neck was draped with multiple chains of different lengths, from a chocker to one that rested just above her navel.  I wondered how she’d got through the airport security system with all that metal in and on her body.

Much to my amazement, when the flight attendant stopped at our row, she leaned over me and said, quite thoughtfully, to the jewellery junkie, “I just love your style.”  Huh!  Obviously the mistake was mine!

As for the things I don’t understand….if any of you out there can make sense of any of it for me, I’d be quite thrilled and grateful.

Let’s begin with this phenomenon of underwear as outerwear that Ghanaians have aptly named, “I’m aware.”  I don’t get it.  Women wear blouses in such a way that their bras are visible.  Jeans are worn low enough to show off the string part of a G-string.  This means, of course, that if the woman is seated, a good-sized portion of her buttocks will come bubbling out of her jeans. I guess I don’t really get what part of that could be considered cute.

When it comes to the public display of “pioto,” the men are just as guilty as their female counterparts. And sadly, it’s not just young men who dress in saggy pants. I’ve watched grown men with greying hair struggle to maintain their swagger as the trousers that they’d belted mid-thigh slowly gave way to gravity and started travelling toward their ankles.  All for the sake of having people see their “dross.”  I don’t get it.

Along the same lines is the bare midriff.  What, in my mind, is problematic about that fashion is that the people who seem most inclined to bare their stomachs are the very people who shouldn’t.  Often, they have potbellies, rolls and rolls of spare tyre flab, harshly herniated navels, or an abdomen so blotchy, dimpled and stretchmarked it looks like a topographic map of some long forgotten land.  I don’t get it.

The last time I was in Shoprite, I stepped into the quinoa and rice aisle and saw a woman wearing what I imagine would be in the wardrobe of Glinda the Good Witch, sans tiara and magic wand.  It was noon, on a weekday.  It wasn’t the first time I’d seen someone dressed this way.  It’s actually not as uncommon as one would think, or hope.  When I got back to my vehicle, I jotted down in my journal:  “Evening wear during the day.  Why oh why, oh why?”

I suppose it made as much sense to her as the purchase I made during a recent shopping spree with an American friend made to me.  I don’t wear red and I don’t wear gold, but was I instantly drawn to a candy-apple red blouse with a shiny gold disk buttons.  It spoke (loudly) to my inner Ashanti, the 50 percent of me that is rarely recognised.  I found my size then took the blouse off the rack.  My friend looked bewildered.

“Are you seriously going to buy that?” she asked.  I could tell she didn’t understand; she didn’t get it.  But I did. Still, I pasted a picture of the blouse in my journal.  Underneath, I wrote this note to myself:  “Only in Kumasi.”

I guess when it comes to fashion, what one person sees as a mistake, another person thinks of as a sense of style.  And thankfully, individuality is one of the few things that will forever be in vogue.