Yoruba traditional wedding garments

Modern Nigeria includes several ethnic groups with their own language, religion and traditions. One of them is ethnic group, which lives in the western part of the country - Yoruba.

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Actually, the marriage ceremony is very alike Western wedding, but the dress is very traditional and interesting. Women wearing bright color screwed bandanna, men, mostly dressed in white. The bride should change the dress at least three times during a night.

The Yoruba culture is very traditional, colorful and bright. Yoruba people combine in a clever way two contrary characteristics: they are contemporary and highly cosmopolitan on the one hand and keep up old traditions on the other hand. They make very smart integration of modern fashion and way of life with traditional marriage ceremonies.

Yoruba traditional attire is a bright example how old traditions are reflected in the contemporary wedding ceremony. A usual Yoruba weddings starts from choice of the traditional fabric Aso-Oke that will be used for future Yoruba traditional marriage attire. This ceremonial cloth by the way is the most used for different events: birthdays, engagements, weddings, naming ceremony, chieftaincy ceremony and other celebrations. Aso-Oke used for production of Yoruba native attire woven in a manual way from 100% natural materials, threads are made of saturated handmade dye or cotton. The process of production of the material is the same as it was before the technologies came.

Traditional Aso-Oke has 3 main colors: beige with strips (Sanyan), deep blue (Etu) and rich red (Al’aari). Contemporary Aso-Oke can be various colors and can satisfy every taste, and fit every budget. The other variant can be even with embroidery lace. This fabric will be used for making Yoruba wedding attire that consists of four pieces.

Wedding is a high-day for two, extra bright and spicy attire makes groom and bright the central in all meanings persons this day.

Yoruba male attire:

• Agbada: a cloth with two layers made of weighty material like Aso-Oke, possible materials are: thick cotton, damask, lace or Ankara. Very big abounding garment covers the body from the neck to ankle and from the one wrist to the opposite. It is very important to choose the right color, which will serve as a foil for the beauty of the whole attire.
• Buba: not tight and broad top with long sleeves broaden out to the wrist. This knee-length garment is shortened and a bit tinier in size than the Agbada.
• Sokoto: a spacious piece of clothing looks like pair of trousers with flexible band or strand to tie it at the waist.
• Fila: a canonic hat without which Yoruba attire for groom is not accomplished.

Yoruba bridal attire:

• Iro: an ankle-length piece of clothing, that should be wrapped around the waist, it looks like wrap skirt.
• Buba: a broad blouse with long sleeves
• Gele: a scarf that is wrapped around head as result looks like stylish headdress
• Iborun or ipele: a scarf or shoulder band
• Ileke: pendant or gold chase: choker, jewelry, and bracelets, of course modern trends are taken into consideration. In this piece of bridal attire bride can give free rein to her fantasy and even design it herself, the main thing is the whole harmony of all pieces of attire.

We can describe Yoruba traditional wedding attire from head to toe, but it is obviously better to look once at Yoruba traditional wedding attire pictures than to read thousands of words.

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