Nigeria’s Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, says that the annual revenue of the Nigerian Fashion Industry is around N2 trillion with about 1,000 businesses that employ over 30,000 practitioners.
Declaring open the Exhibition, tagged ‘Cycles of Fashion’, at Terra Kulture, in Lagos, Mohammed noted that despite the capacity of the Nigerian Fashion Industry to help advance the government’s economic diversification policy, wealth and job creation, it has been underrated and that the government is set to reverse it.
“While we continue to focus on Music and Film, we tend to ignore or underrate the fashion industry. I guess this is because of the lack of adequate information about the industry.
”Compare this with the Film Industry, with an annual revenue of N140 billion or the Music Industry, with an annual revenue of N300 billion, and you will understand how huge the Fashion Industry is,” he said.
The Minister noted that the Exhibition differs from the typical exhibitions because of the deployment of 3D mapping technology that animates the costumes on the mannequins.
According to him, the multi-media Fashion Exhibition, is aimed at exploring how the Nigeria’s socio-cultural ways have influenced the forging of a national identity
from the diverse cultures that make up the country has opened in Lagos as
part of the activities celebrating Nigeria’s Diamond Jubilee..
The Nigerian Minister said that the incredibly-immersive and colourful exhibition, which is being jointly organized by the Ministry and Terra Kulture, ”will take us on a historic, educative and informative journey of the people and tribes that make up Nigeria and their unique dress styles”.
He described fashion as a valuable part of the Nigerian culture, whose importance in the nation’s history cannot be ignored and that the ‘Cycles of Fashion’ will also capture the rich contribution of fashion and dress code to the Nigerian national identity all through the years.
In her remarks, the Founder of Terra Kulture, Mrs. Bolanle Austen-Peters, said the historic fashion exhibition is a six-part series to showcase Nigeria’s fashion, festivals and religions, among others, from pre-independence to present day Nigeria.
($1=N380)
GIK/APA