Aldo's Ankara Print Wedges...Purely Fabulous!!!

I've been meaning to blog about my awesome Ankara print wedges, since I got them in May, but as you can all understand, I have been delayed with the busy-ness that is life...
Now, there is a bit of a story behind these shoes, because you know we don't come across this type of shoe everyday here, so check it out...

I first stumbled across these shoes on a site while I was randomly browsing the web. A person had taken a picture of the shoes displayed in an Aldo store window in New York. As soon as I saw them I knew that I was going to own a pair!! So I started googling, and I found the shoes featured on a few African websites such as http://www.shadders.net/ and http://www.omonaijamag.com/
The more I looked at them, the more my obsession and love for them grew...
The only thing that didn't sit well with me as I was doing my search, was when I saw Aldo's description of the shoes stating that "it was inspired from the groovy seventies." I thought really... couldn't they just acknowlegde that the shoes are straight African inspired...?! Anyway i got over it quickly because I knew when I got my pair, I would proudly rock them to represent my African/Ghanaian culture!!

So, I called Aldos's head office here and found out the shoes were called 'Forwood' and asked whether the shoes were gonna make it to Aldo stores here and if so, when? (cause you know how we always miss out on the good stuff here...). To my pleasant surprise though, they were!! So I placed my order for a pair to be put on hold for me in the city store when they arrived in May!!

When May came along, and I hadn't heard anything from Aldo, and after calling the city store countless times but never getting through, I made a trip into the city to find out what had happened. When I got there and enquired, the girls there told me they had not received a messgae from head office to have the shoes put aside for me, (of course...just my luck...), and they had no more of my size in stock... :-( So I tried the size up, to get a feel for the shoes, and also hoping that somehow the sizing system was different and it would fit me... lol...but of course they were too big. So I left my details with one of the girls for her to call around to the other Aldo stores to find my size, and I left...Within 15-20mins of me leaving I got a call back from the girl saying she had found a pair for me at their Robina store!! YAY!! So I came back and finalised the payment to get the shoes sent to my house!!

About a week later, a delivery man knocked on the door with a package for me!! My shoes!!! They were here!! I ripped the package apart and pulled out the shoes and they were even more fabulous than I remembered them!! I tried them on, and yes!! They fit perfectly!! And were so comfortable!! And boy did they give me some serious height!!

Since I got them, I have worn them 3 times. The first time was to go see my mom on mothers day, just to kinda break them in; the second time was to my friends Akua and Ololade's 25th birthday; and the third time was to church this past weekend.
Each time I have worn them, I have received loads of compliments and admiring glances from random on lookers, and you will see why in the pictures below... They are definately a statement shoe that scream 'look at me!' Now although the heel of the wedge is 4 inches in height, they are quite comfortable but I suggest that you don't wear them for a whole night of dancing because your feet will definately feel it, (as I found out at Akua and Ololades birthday party)...lol. They are great though to wear for a short, reasonable period of time.

The shoes came in 2 prints, and Nicole Ari Parker, (wife of Ghana's Boris Kodjoe) rocked her green pair with a simple white ensemble to an event in Hollywood recently!

At $110.00, they were a little pricey but it was definately worth the investment, because I will be wearing these shoes for many seasons to come!!

Rocking my wedges to church!!



'Forwood' in Turquoise



Nicole Ari Prker rockin her wedges with all white



'Forwood' in Green



The foolishness that is Satoshi Kanazawa!

With the constant barrage of negativity in the media about black women, I decided to dedicate this post to encourage my beautiful African sisters and women of colour out there, that you are beautiful and worthy just as you are, and you have been fearfully and wonderfully made in the image of the Creator Himself!
So most recently, Psychology Today  published an article by Satoshi Kanazawa, (a psychologist at the London School of Economics), titled "Why Are Black Women Less Physically Attractive Than Other Women." Yeah!!! Can you believe that?!?! What kind of person would choose to write such an article and think they could get away with it? Did they really expect anyone to take them seriously? What could they possibly have to say, and how and why were they even going to attempt to justify it?! And, why would a reputable magazine publish such a racially biased article? These are all the questions that flooded my mind, and I needed to have to have them answered, so I began reading...

So in the article, Satoshi Kanazawa, selected a group of people and asked them to rate which women they considered most and least attractive. Now we don't know if it was women or men; how many people; what race(s); or what age range took the poll, but lets just say that we can assume what type of people were polled, because the conclusion was that black women were the least phyically attractive in comparison their white, Asian and Native american counterparts.

Now this next part is a quote from the article by Satoshi himself, and set it me off!!!

"The only thing I can think of that might potentially explain the lower average level of physical attractiveness among black women is testosterone. Africans on average have higher levels of testosterone than other races, and testosterone, being an androgen (male hormone), affects the physical attractiveness of men and women differently. Men with higher levels of testosterone have more masculine features and are therefore more physically attractive. In contrast, women with higher levels of testosterone also have more masculine features and are therefore less physically attractive. The race differences in the level of testosterone can therefore potentially explain why black women are less physically attractive than women of other races, while (net of intelligence) black men are more physically attractive than men of other races."

WHAT?!?! The nerve of this guy!! This is how he is going to justify the results?!?!  Is he serious?? This had to be written by an ignorant, uneducated person because how can someone take a poll where people are rating people, and are coming with their own biases, thoughts, ideas, and perceptions and expect us to think its objective?! And then on top of that, it is clear that Satoshi incorparted his own views and perceptions of black women into the mix! C'mon man! You gotta come better than that, because this will certainly not fly with my black sisters out there!!

Frankly, i'm so over certain people in society that can't accept the fact that there is beauty in all races, and they feel the need to constantly compare one to the other! Like seriously who gave him the right to tell me or anyone else what is deemed physically attractive? 

Now the only positive thing to come out of the article was this, and I'm quoting again,

"It is very interesting to note that, even though black women are objectively less physically attractive than other women, black women (and men) subjectively consider themselves to be far more physically attractive than others. "

Thats right!! 'You can't tell me nothing!! When a black woman know she look good, you better believe she is going to rock all that self confidence! You can't stand in her way, and there is nothing you can say to bring her down! And this goes to show how resilent we as black women are! Society is always,
and will continue to tell us that we are not good enough as we are, yet we continue to push through and rise above all the negativity. They say black ain't beautiful, but it sure is popular!! Because, it is certainly no coincident that women of other races are now paying ridiculous amounts of money to have surgeries to obtain the physical features that God has naturally blessed us with!!

So how did this end?? The article was removed from the Pychology Today webiste; ColorOfChange.org, the largest African-American online political organization asked its members to bombard the publication with complaints via phone, email and social media networks regarding the article, and after receiving over 75,000 complaints, Kanazawa is no longer contributing to the publication; The legisaltive body of University of London Union Senate, representing over 120,000 students, voted unanomously for Kanazawa to be dismissed with the students stating that they were concerned with his academic influence; and Editor-in-Chief of Psychology Today issued a formal apology stating this:

"Last week, a blog post about race and appearance by Satoshi Kanazawa was published–and promptly removed–from this site. We deeply apologize for the pain and offense that this post caused. Psychology Today’s mission is to inform the public, not to provide a platform for inflammatory and offensive material. Psychology Today does not tolerate racism or prejudice of any sort. The post was not approved by Psychology Today, but we take full responsibility for its publication on our site. We have taken measures to ensure that such an incident does not occur again. Again, we are deeply sorry for the hurt that this post caused.”

Yea, yea, yea... we've heard these apologies before...today its Psychology Today, tomorrow its another publication...it never ends!! The truth of the matter is this ariticle should have never seen the light of day!! The editor(s) at the magazine knew that the article was racially biased and that black people would find it offensive yet they still published it! Why? Because they assumed we weren't reading these sorts of publications, that we weren't gonna make any noise about it, and we were going to be okay with being disrespected in such a manner!! SMDH!! But they definately got it twisted!!

So to my all my sisters out there, hold your heads up high, be confident and rock you, because although we are apparently not what societies perception of beauty is, WE know that we have a good thing going on! And secretly 'they' know too, but don't want to admit it and make it known... We will continue to love who we are and embrace all the uniquesness God gave us when He crafted us!!

Satoshi who? He must not have seen my friends before he wrote that article...lol