In most towns in Delta State, especially Warri, Abraka, Agbor, Ughelli, Sapele and Asaba, the people relish fashions and dresses that are highly in vogue. AN average Deltan lady craves and loves to be admired! A compliment in this regard makes them go crazy. To get this done, they apply the weapon of the sight. Men are trapped through what they see after all. So, dress seductively and they will come calling. This is the mindset.
Some say the trend stems from the negative influence of movies from Hollywood and Nollywood artists. Their near nude displays are consequently absorbed by their fans across the world. But give it to Deltans whose young girls are victims. Fashion craze is the in-thing and this leaves no one doubt. Besides, their sense of colour and choice of dresses are immense and legendary. This is even revealed in attires and buildings with potpourri of colours.
Deltans are just colour crazy, the economic situation notwithstanding. As a result, boutiques are rife in major towns and cities in the state. Most traders, especially of Igbo stock, deal in colourful and seductive dresses, which are always expensive. For instance, it has been observed that average Deltans, particularly wafarians, love “loud” colours like red, blue, purple, lilac, shining black, just name them when it comes to engaging in outings. With much penchant for pleasure and anything that could bring some pleasure, Deltans are amazing when it comes to choice of what to wear.
A first timer to any town in Delta will be bewildered by the sense of fashion and colour taste of the people. On major and minor streets, the creativity and craze for colour and fashion abounds. Colourfully designed mega and mini boutiques, stocked with skimpy and colourful dresses, dot every nook and cranny of towns and villages. The phenomenon cuts across both traditional and modern fashion.
Such crazy dresses for ladies and guys include those identified by some traders as shots, leggings, tight and bum shorts, joint suit, Rihanna tops, Rihanna skirts, Rihanna trousers, Davido singlets, rugged tights, leather tights, belly trousers, party gowns, high waist, poloraph, belly jeans, mama’s top, crop tops, swagger jeans etc. In Warri, for instance, these are found in Igbudu Market, Main Market, Ibo Market, Enerhen junction, Okere market, Estate, Warri/Sapele road and even suburbs like Ubeji, Ekpan, and where students are mainly resident.
To make the wears conspicuous for passers-by and customers, the traders display the items by wearing them on plastic human stereotypes popularly called “dummies.” The message seems to say: “as you see it on this figure, so will it be on your body.”
Until recently when itinerant Commissioner of Environmen, Mr Frank Omare, went demolishing shanties and building extensions along roads and streets of major towns, the dummies competed with pedestrians and vehicles for space.Why the preponderance of “loud” colours and very sexy dresses? One Igbo trader, who simply identified himself as Ikechukwu or Iyke for short, said teenage ladies in Delta were simply awesomely crazy for attires that exposed their cleavages to luscious eyes of the opposite sex.
“That is what people, especially teenagers, demand and I do not only sell these, I also have gowns and skirts for our mummies,” Iyke stated. When also asked why he had a particular interest in the sales of seductive dresses, another respondent cum trader, who declined identifying his name, but whose boutique’s name is T-Boy Boutique, said “it is good and that is what is in high demands in the market.”
According to the young man, whose boutique is situated behind Igbudu Market in Warri, “it is obvious that sexy dresses sell more than decent dresses. As a business man, you have to buy all types of clothes to suite everybody. So, I still have some decent ones inside, but these ones (sexy dresses) outside attract customers more.” To Christanbel, owner of Christal Collections, sale of erotic dresses moves faster than any other. “What would I do? People usually ask for them. I have other ones, but they are inside,” the nurse-turned trader disclosed.
It was gathered that the traders in these salacious dresses go as far as Lagos, Onitsha, Dubai as well as China to purchase various types of sexy dresses. Sales, all the traders agreed, increase during festive periods such as Christmas, Easter, New Year, Independence, Valentine Day, traditional carnivals, etc. On other days, boyfriends of teenagers, adults and even the married could go shopping for their loved ones.
Would the traders garb their female children with what they sell? Some said they really would not mind. “Yes there is nothing bad in it,” the owner a boutique known as Lovely Boutique, in Warri, agreed. “It’s their choice. You know everybody has a unique taste and for me, I will buy the clothes for my sister if she wants and as for my girlfriend, I can allow her to wear them if she looks good in them,” Iyke disclosed.
Many ladies obsessed with these latest sex-inviting dresses take their fashion beyond streets and clubs to as far as God’s presence. Churches, orthodox ones such as Anglicans, Catholics and Apostolics especially, now have to design posters with photographs of various provocative dresses they abhor (for both male and female) and paste such in front of their church gates for intending worshippers to take a cue before advancing into the auditoriums.
Speaking with a customer of sexy dresses, who craved anonymity, she said she felt at home with them because they made her beautiful and attractive! “I like buying them because they make me look good, beautiful and attractive. Although some are expensive, I don’t mind buying them since they make me look attractive,” the lady, who was beaming with smiles, insisted.
The sexy dresses, from enquiries, are costlier than normal ones. Some go for as much as N1, 500 or N2, 000, depending on the variety. Come hunger or thirst, these ladies, including breastfeeding mothers, rush for these killer dresses! Their claim is to continue to remain relevant to the rat race. With the dresses, there is hardly any demarcation between those who have been to the labour room and those yet to do so!
Craze and hunger for fashion, someone once said, are misplaced values symptomatic of a dying economy and poverty of a society. Could this be what is playing out in the country?
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