I have always loved headgears and as one of my friends reckon, gele- tying Nigerian women often get an instant facelift when they tie their headgears. These fashionable pieces can come in Ankara, “aso-oke” (handwoven strip for head gears popularised by Nigerians and simple raw silk strips that are so easy to tie. As a young girl, I admired the fierce “gele- tying” skills of my mum and my Aunties, head coverings in such gorgeous colours and textures. In addition to these geles which I have in their numbers, I am also quite a collector of silk scarves and cotton tie and dye scarves, all of them outfit enhancers.
Add a colourful to die for silk scarf to a basic black dress or jacket and everything changes and a new dynamism hits the dress. Those headgears tied from Abeokuta to Kaduna, from Lokoja to Lagos have come to define Nigerian weddings all over the world. The aso-ebis, basically the uniformed headgears and fabrics for the wedding outfits is the rave in Nigeria and for Nigerians in diaspora.
Aso-ebi simply means cloth for family and everyone tries to support each other by purchasing this fabric sold by the family of both bride and groom. This adds colour to the entire event. Other than the amazing fashion at Nigerian weddings, it is really the laadies headgears that constitute the icing on the cake. Jauntily ties in different designs and styles, there is now a gele tying service at most markets in Nigeria. I mean, if you are unable to do it yourself, the service does exist for a fee. These days, there is also the auto-gele which is a headgear already prepared for you to just drop it on your head quite like a hat.
This single most important part of the Nigerian culture among her women has morphed into a cross boundary style appearing in Ghana and Senegal among other neighbouring countries and can now be seen on International catwalks
With many years under my belt reading the National network news and with the Nigerian headgear as part of the house style for the job, I learnt different forms of headgear styles finally picking out one style, adjusting it to my comfort and making it my own. All these headgears have names and over the years my style of headgear acquired my name in most scarf tying vendors while I was still on active service on Television as a National anchor.
This single most important part of the Nigerian culture among her women has morphed into a cross boundary style appearing in Ghana and Senegal among other neighbouring countries and can now be seen on International catwalks. It always brings great joy to my soul when I see an expansive headgear at an International fashion show reminiscence of a Nigerian headgear.
There is an evolving sense of the need to acquire a headgear without sweating the small stuff among the younger generation who find the twists and turns of traditional headgear tying a chore. So, they are coming up with already made hats like headgears and accessories to add to the headgear to make it pop and the ubiquitous turban, a cross between Arabian headdresses and the Nigerian headgear. These are appearing at parties and weddings now in different shapes and sizes, elegantly added to a truly fashionable ensemble. I watch at parties how women walk in boldly with these absolutely smashing headgears and a new style is added every fashion season, much to my delight.
I love the fascinators as well and the hats slowly becoming the exclusive preserve of Pastor wives. Today you can catch some fashionista donning a headgear and fascinator combo and my oh my, how gorgeous. I always look to the wife of the Vice President of Ghana for that essentially unique combo, always dressed to the nines.
In the end, I find that everyone has their own unique way of tying their scarves and headgears leaving us all awe-struck with the beauty and the razzmatazz that will remain with us for a long time to come.
I am a sucker for headgear and this is my way of saying go look for your style ye women and for the men, take an interest lol. Let’s breathe a little, laugh a little and momentarily put Nigeria’s problems away while looking at all the colours our women bring to the table at all our social events. E go better!
