Headgear

I had the pleasure of being invited to a traditional Nigerian tribal union one Sunday. We had to wear the traditional dress of our country. Being British, I don't know what traditional dress is, so if I go back a generation to my parents- they are both Mauritian, so the traditional dress of Mauritius is this:

'Sega' dancers wearing Mauritian traditional dress

Somehow I don't think that they are appropriate for a wedding ceremony- especially as as I don't own a costume and my belly is not as flat as I would have liked! So, if I go back another generation (aka my grandparents), I come to the traditional Chinese dress... the qi pao or cheong sam depending on which dialect you use!
Unfortunately I don't own such a lovely dress. Mine actually looks like a Chinese waitress' uniform- long and red with a side split, which is one of the reasons why I don't wear it at all! So, I looked through my wardrobe and luckily enough I have two other traditional outfits that I could wear- my Yukata (which is Japanese traditional dress) and my 'Ao Dai' (which is Vietnamese traditional dress)

I decided to go with the 'Ao Dai' as I thought that it looked a more more formal and appropriate for a wedding! Although, I do own the hat (as seen below) I didn't wear it!!When we were there, I was actually amazed by the intricacies of the hat/ turbans that constituted the Nigerian women's traditional dress. Here are some images:

Some were very elaborate with lots of pleats and bows and fabric sticking out at all kinds of angles, whereas some were just simple turban types- just covering the head! It reminded me of Prada's take on the turban:
However, I'm more in awe of the ones that I saw- almost made of paper and very colourful, they were much more interesting!