Top fashion designers set out Sunday to prove the saying that a stylish woman can even look good in a bin bag.

Belgian husband and wife team Filip Arickx and An Vandevorst turned black plastic bin liners and dry cleaning sheaths into skirts and elaborate embroidered ball gowns in their debut Paris haute couture show.

Haute couture is the very pinnacle of the fashion world, with only an elite band of designers allowed to show their luxurious handmade creations in the French capital, some of which cost tens of thousands of dollars.

Published: 03 July 2017

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Mali's fabled city of Timbuktu on Thursday celebrated the recovery of its historic mausoleums, destroyed during an Islamist takeover of northern Mali in 2012 and rebuilt thanks to UN cultural agency UNESCO.

The dusty desert city formally received the keys to the precious shrines to Muslim saints dating back to medieval times at a ceremony consecrating their return that was held in the legendary Djingareyber mosque.

Al-Qaeda-linked insurgents wrecked 14 of the city's iconic earthen shrines built during Timbuktu's 15th and 16th century golden age as an economic, intellectual and spiritual centre.

To mark their reconstruction, five heads of cattle were ritually sacrificed just after dawn, ahead of a reading of the entire Muslim holy book the Koran and the handing of the keys to the families in charge of their care.

"This day celebrates the remarkable and courageous work accomplished to recover your dignity," UNESCO's Lazare Eloundou told the officials, diplomats and religious and traditional dignitaries attending the ceremony.

UNESCO has listed the city as a world heritage site in danger due to "its important role of commercial, spiritual and cultural centre on the southern trans-Saharan trading route, and its traditional characteristic construction techniques."

Islamist fighters destroyed the centuries-old shrines after seizing the city in April 2012, swiftly implementing a version of Islamic law which forced women to wear veils and set whipping and stoning as punishment for transgressions.

- 'Idolatrous' -

They considered the shrines, as well as priceless ancient manuscripts, to be idolatrous.

But in January 2013 they fled the city, driven out by a French-led international force which is still stationed in Mali but has failed to take control of remote northern reaches of the vast desert nation.

Published: 06 February 2016

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