At one point in time, it was very fashionable to
wear ‘ready-made clothes” and the traditional or ethnic printed fabric were
only sewn into ‘iro and buba” which was regarded archaic.
However in Nigeria today, things have turned around
one eighty degrees and now, wearing ethnic printed clothing is very in.
As time has passed on, the clothing fabric became
finer, less heavy, non-itchy, available in varieties and most of all, tailors
developed a better sense of style.
It’s so much easier to have clothing sewn from
traditional fabric now, be it Ankara, Kente, lace, dry lace, Guinea, French
lace, Adire, Aso-oke- just go to your tailor and describe what you want to him
or her, and voila!
The great thing about various prints is that you
can design every detail of how you want your outfit to look; the transformation
is carried out by tailors. They turn your plain materials to elegant pieces or
in some cases, screwed up caricatures.
Ankara has now become a popular commodity; it’s
even imbibed in fashion shows and seen on international celebrities. Nigerian
designers such as Lanre Da-Silva Ajayi of LDA, Kiki Kamanu, Ituen Basi, JD7,
and Lisa Folawiyo of Jewel by Lisa, Zizi Cardow, and Ade Bakare amongst others
have taken the indigenous fabric and transformed them into eye candy and show
cased them on an international level.
Clothing accessories are not left out; traditional
fabric has been used on bracelets, shoes, clutch purses, brooches, ties and
what not.
ciaafrique.com
The ‘iro’ and ‘buba’ has been revamped now,
there ‘oleku’ version has returned from the eighties to grace us with it
chic elegance. The ‘oleku’ is basically the shorter version of the
traditional Yoruba ‘iro’ and ‘buba’, this looks really great on ladies,
age and size irrespective
I suggest we all get off our hides and begin to
fill our closets with items of Ankara, for it adds flavour to any outfit any
day, anytime.
Half-Blazer-Cocktail-Dress
- Sony Music Video Ella Varner
- nollywoodexpress.com
- at TAO Beach on June 12, 2010 in Las Vegas, Nevada
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