Fashion Illustration Techniques and Their Application in Nigerian Fashion Design Education

Fashion illustration serves as a foundational competency in design education, enabling students to conceptualise, communicate, and refine garment ideas before construction. This study examines the techniques of fashion illustration employed in selected Nigerian polytechnics and universities offering fashion design programmes, with case studies drawn from Yaba College of Technology in Lagos and the Polytechnic of Sokoto State in Sokoto. The research adopts a descriptive comparative design, gathering primary data through structured questionnaires and studio observations administered to 150 students and 20 studio lecturers across the two institutions. The study evaluates the prevalence of hand-drawn illustration versus digital illustration tools, the level of student competency achieved, and the alignment of illustration pedagogy with industry expectations from Nigerian fashion houses and designers. The theoretical framework integrates art education theory with the professional competency models developed in recent fashion design curriculum literature. The comparison of a South West institution with a North West institution introduces a geographic dimension that allows the study to probe whether resource availability and institutional culture produce measurable differences in illustration competency outcomes. The role of Nigerian fashion weeks and the growing export interest in Ankara-based fashion collections as drivers of curriculum reform is examined. Findings are expected to inform the National Board for Technical Education's fashion design curriculum review and to contribute to pedagogical debates in Nigerian studio arts education. Keywords: fashion illustration, design education, Nigeria, curriculum, digital tools