The history of lace as a fashion fabric in Nigeria is well explored in the exhibition book. Earlier imported fabrics like Madras/George and Ankara (with origins in India and Indonesia) came more than a half-century before lace which was first used nation-wide as hemming for underwear, curtains and for blouses in the Niger Delta and Eastern Nigeria before its massive and definitive incursion into Yoruba culture and Western Nigeria as the ultimate fabric of chic, opulence, affluence and class. Lace has endured many social scandals, stigma and upheavals due to trade bans. It has gone from ridicule as “rich man’s nakedness” to scorn as the cheap (compared to aso oke) gaudy fabric of the not-too-classy brash nouveau riche and, distaste; when armed robber Babatunde Isola Folorunsho was executed in his very expensive wonyosi lace. Ebenezer Obey, a beneficiary of the lace culture, issued a special song in defence of lace.
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