Aso Ebi (also called Ashebi), which literally means ‘family cloth’ originated with the Yoruba people of south-western Nigeria, as can be deduced from the name. It refers to a piece or set of clothing that is chosen and worn by members of a family at a social function, especially if they are the celebrants. Its…
Agbani Darego; highly sought-after international model and a spokesperson of L’Oreal, the renowned French cosmetic house with her face appeared on several billboards around the world. On November 17,2001 Darego beat 92 other contestants to win the beauty pageant in South Africa’s Sun City, Johannesburg. Her rise to fame, in the glamorous world of beauty…
Emmy Collins, born of Nigerian and Dutch parents, is a London based avant garde fashion designer who is well known for his sartorial taste in fashion. Also a fashion blogger, Emmy have declined Nigerian artistes who approached him for styling several times, preferring to style only persons who have a strong personality that could pull…
Gele; popular headdress fashion in Nigeria. Gele was for the fashion divas of the 1950s the ultimate head piece. At no other time did the beauty of the gele become more apparent than in 1960 when Nigeria won her independence. Lagos was agog in 1960 after the independence. Nigerian women, especially Lagosians embraced flamboyant head…
Deola Sagoe is the frontline Nigerian haute couture designer daughter to Michael Ade Ojo of Elizade Motors. Deola was educated at the University of Miami and University of Lagos with a Masters in Finance and Management before she discovered her passion. Adopting the trade name, O’dua Originals, she made her debut in 1998. Deola became…
Americanism, the propensity of the Nigerian to lean towards American ideologies increased after independence from the British. However, the year 1938 marked the formal beginning of cultural relations with other countries by the United States government as well as the formal opening of the Ogbomoso People’s Institute (OPI) in Nigeria. This was the first school in…
Alakija Folorunsho is a business magnate and philanthropist. Folorunsho was born into a wealthy, polygamous family at Ikorodu in 1951. At the age of seven, she was sent, together with her younger sister, to a private school in Wales, returning to Nigeria just four years later to attend Muslim High School in Sagamu. On her…
Aguda is the term used for Yoruba Brazilian returnees in 19th Century Lagos. Many of these people, also known as emancipados, or Amaros were captured from the interior in the late eighteenth or early nineteenth century and exported to Bahia in Brazil. The immigration of Amaros were concurrent with those of the Saros, Yorubas who…
Remi Lagos, real name, Oluremi Dorcas Oshokale was a fashion designer, born 1961 to actress mother and a urbane father with whom she enjoyed frequent Sunday visits to the beach as a child. Her secondary education at Bariga Girls Secondary Grammar was followed by an A’ levels course at Bexhill on Sea school, in the UK…