I am a huge fan of British designer Stella McCartney! In her 2011 Resort Collection there is a gorgeous lace garment featured on the JAK & JIL blog, which reminds me of the traditional Nigerian lace. It captures the strong colours, patterns and details which are often found in Nigerian lace.
An example of Nigerian lace.
I spent a good hour or so, looking for a Nigerian women wearing traditional lace. I actually ended up finding a great image of my Mum ‘lacing it out’ on my computer. My Mum is wearing the lace topped off with Nigerian styled headscarf for a Nigerian wedding held in my church about four years ago. Her scarf is quite small in comparison to others I have seen! Ghanaian women don’t usually wear their headscarves as extravagant and large as the Nigerians do. However, many Ghanaian women have adopted the style.
I know that in Nigerian weddings, if you are a friend of the bride, you usually wear a particular wax-print or lace fabric in various styles to show your support with all the bride’s friends. The Nigerian bride-to-be at my church wanted all the women to wear something with purple topped of with everyone wearing a purple and gold headscarf. Some women in my church found it difficult to wear their scarves large. So a few woman hosted something like a ‘scarving’ session the week before the wedding.The women were either taught how to wear the scarf or given custom pre-made scraves which were simply worn like hats on the wedding day. I think wearing the scarf is like Japanese origami on your head! It is truly an artform!
SOURCE: SKYSCRAPERSCITY
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