The culture of Aso ebi, creativity and talent amongst yoruba women.

 This is a yoruba fashion - centric post that only the ladies of yodaai may find interesting. Our men, unless you follow the vagaries of fashion, can stop reading the post now if y'all want.

Aso ebi,  for our non-yoruba speaking friends literally translates into "family cloth / dress / fabric",  something that when worn in a gathering, identifies a whole group of people wearing the same "dress" as ebi, or family or relatives, or close friends of the family - a very broad and inclusive definition indeed. Induces a feeling of warmth and fuzziness.

We can have a vigorous debate one way or the other on the virtues of the culture of aso ebi amongst us yoruba folks, why do we do it, is it necessary, etc, etc. This is not an essay on that subject.

Rather, this is a celebration of talent, creativity and bonding amongst the yorubas, focusing on the use of Aso ebi. Indeed that yoruba talent and creativity was on display this last labor day weekend at a 70th birthday celebration I attended in Houston, Texas. Yes, I know. A long way from Nigeria and here we are with our custom of aso ebi..

The family of the celebrant sent out this aso ebi to each of us.

Aso ebi, Ankara.

Not anything unusual amongst us Nigerians. The question is what do you do with it? What do you turn it into creatively?

Aso ebi with hot pink fabric added to top of blouse

 I was struck by the many different and fantabulous styles and combination people came up with,  given the same ankara fabric, both men and women. None of the women went to Macy's or Sacks 5th Avenue to pick out a design. We each found our individual tailors and created our individual designs and came out with about a hundred different complete designs, no two dresses alike, same fabric.

Aso ebi on top, different skirt altogether

Aso ebi, maxi dress

Aso ebi maxi dress with swingy bottom

Aso ebi, traditional iro & buba

Aso ebi, different blouse on top, with the aso ebi as gele and wrapper on the left, Skirt & blouse on the right.

Aso ebi combined with denim fabric to make a wrap dress! Ingenious!

Aso ebi, Cute Top with black ric rac in the waist

Aso ebi with turquoise gele (Headtie and )insert in bustier 

Aso ebi skirt & blouse with turquoise inserts in top & skirt,  (r) maxi dress with gold sequins on top, pink insert below

Aso ebi with golden yellow sequins on maxi dress

Aso ebi, with holes cut out of fabric to make it into lace with a bronze lining underneath showing

Aso ebi, traditional buba & sokoto

 Dont tell me we are not a creatively minded people, very right brained and ingenious in what we can do given the little we have by way of resources. Here is my premise really for this story: Any group of minds that can come up with this many ideas can surely come up with creative solutions for some of the challenges facing our country. I know that this is a long extrapolation, but why not?

What are we doing with our God given talents? 

I am reminded of the old Ebenezer Obey song -  that song that spoke about the parable of the 3 men with talents, one of whom ended up burying his. "Ma se ri talenti ri mo le arakunrin, Oluwa yio bere l'owo re, ohun t'o fi se! 

Yes, we are a talented group. Yes, we can be very creative. Yes, we can, as President Obama would say, if we put our minds to it, create a better, more secure society for our selves in Nigeria. Yes, we can harness the talent and creative minds of many Yoruba/Nigerians to take the society to a different level, reflect our culture from a different perspective, make the world sit up and notice us once again, and not just for what we are wearing.

Funke Abolade,


Social / Publicity Secretary