#TRENDING – Fashionistas now hooked on Naija’s ‘Trad’
LEGGY dancers in tight shorts, bottles of Moet & Chandon champagne and flashy cars feature in Nigerian pop icon Wizkid’s bling-bling music videos.
But the singer himself has now swapped the Versace Tshirts and low-slung jeans that show his underwear for traditional African dress – a new youth trend in the fashion hub of Lagos.
Last year, Vogue voted Wizkid “Nigeria’s best-dressed pop singer”, a particularly coveted and prestigious title in a country where appearance is all-important and competition is fierce.
Clothing that used to be considered only for the old or for people out in the provinces is setting the trend in fashion, from the Yoruba agbada – a large, triple-layered robe worn in the southwest – to the Igbo Niger Delta embroidered collarless shirt from the south, and the northern Hausa babariga, a long tunic worn with an embroidered asymmetrical hat. In recent years, this traditional clothing – or “trad” as it’s dubbed – can be seen in offices as well as nightclubs, and at weddings and business meetings.
“It’s the in-thing now,” Wizkid told Vogue magazine.
“When I’m back home all wear is African fabrics.
“I get material from different parts of Nigeria – north, west, south – and I mix it up,” said the 26-year-old superstar.
Lack of space in Lagos – a sprawling megacity of 20 million inhabitants – has meant there are few shopping centres, and ready-to-wear clothing stores are hard to find.
Economic recession and the plunging naira currency has put paid to wealthy Nigerians’ shopping sprees in Dubai, Paris and Milan.
Instead, they have had to make do with what is on offer locally, sending the popularity of roadside tailors soaring.
In 2012, Omobolaji Ademosu, known as BJ, left his job in a bank to set up his own line of men’s clothing, Pro7ven.
IIn two tiny workshops in Ojodu, on the outskirts of Lagos, his dozen employees cut, sew and iron a series of orders to the sound of a diesel generator. BJ calls his style “African contemporary”. His work includes magnificent made-tomeasure agbadas with embroidered collars, which can sell for up to 150 000 naira (R6 100) each. “Trad is swag,” smiled BJ. “Even in Paris, young people from the diaspora want to present themselves as African princes now,” said Nelly Wandji, owner of MoonLook, an African fashion boutique in the upmarket Rue du Faubourg StHonore.
“Nigeria is clearly the leader in fashion. Lagos Fashion Week has dethroned Johannesburg.
“Nigerians have remained much more authentic, they have retained ‘African pride’, whereas South Africa is very Europeanised.” Wandji said. — AFP