ABSTRACT
The study investigated the innovation, creativity and acceptability of wedding dresses produced from indigenous fabrics among female youths in South-South and South-West, Nigeria. The potential goals, areas of innovation, feasibility study of the innovation ideas, concept development, design and development, testing and validation and implementing and production of wedding dresses using indigenous fabrics were developed. Twelve research questions guided the study. Four hypotheses were formulated and tested at 0.05 level of significance.
The study employed Research and Development(R&D) research design. The population of the study was 19,375,943 of female youths in the South-South and South-West, Nigeria. The sample size for the study was 400. Multi-stage sampling procedure was used in the selection of respondents from the population. The instrument used for data collection was questionnaire titled” Acceptability of Wedding Dress Produced from Indigenous Fabrics by Female Youth Questionnaire”. The instrument was validated and trial-tested to determine the internal consistency of the items and co-efficient of stability. Cronbach Alpha statistics was used to determine the reliability coefficient and a value of 0.97 was obtained which implied very high internal consistency of the instrument. Data collected were statistically analysed using both descriptive (frequency, percentage, mean and standard deviation) and inferential statistical methods (Analysis of Variance, ANOVA).
The major findings were that the level of acceptability by female youth of wedding dresses with indigenous fabrics in the South-South and South-West of Nigeria is averagely high, but the wedding dress styled as ball gown produced with white Aso-oke which reflected both innovation, creativity and compatibility of indigenous fabrics richness and cultural significance. The study concluded that the product of wedding dresses using indigenous fabrics is a detailed process that merges cultural heritage with modern design and creativity. The wedding dresses produced from these indigenous fabrics were not only beautiful but also respectful of Nigerian tradition, while meeting the female youth bridal expectations in terms of comfort and styles. The study therefore recommended that female youths need to be educated on the importance of the use of indigenous fabrics in terms of its comfortability, suitability, durability among others and indigenous fabrics should be given more surface ornamentation to improve its suitability for use among youths.
