The Visual Grammar of Nigerian Fashion: An Interdisciplinary Theory of Dress, Identity, and Cultural Capital

Fashion in Nigeria functions as a system of visual communication through which individuals negotiate ethnic identity, class aspiration, religious affiliation, professional status, and aesthetic sensibility in ways that constitute a complex cultural grammar awaiting systematic theoretical articulation. This study develops an original interdisciplinary theory of Nigerian fashion as a visual grammar, drawing on linguistics, cultural anthropology, aesthetic philosophy, and fashion studies to construct a model that explains how dress communicates meaning across Nigeria's diverse social and cultural contexts. The theoretical contribution involves the construction of what the study terms a cultural syntax of dress, analysing the combinatorial rules through which garment choices, fabric types, colour combinations, accessories, and occasion-specific conventions produce communicative meaning. The empirical grounding uses a multi-sited ethnographic design conducted in Lagos, Kano, Benin City, and Enugu, combining structured observation of dress practices in formal and informal social settings with in-depth interviews conducted with 80 participants representing diverse age, gender, class, and ethnic backgrounds. The analysis examines how the same garment elements carry different grammatical significance in different cultural communities and how the grammar of dress has been destabilised by globalisation, digital fashion media, and the emergence of hybrid sartorial practices. The theoretical framework integrates Roland Barthes' fashion system, Bourdieu's cultural capital theory, and the African dress studies literature. Findings contribute a major theoretical framework to African fashion studies, cultural anthropology, and the art history of dress. Keywords: Nigerian fashion, visual grammar, cultural identity, dress theory, Afrocentric aesthetics