What I Wore

Deep chocolate brown instead of the usual navy or white-and-gold. Tonal embroidery only, matching fila, dark brown slip-ons. The point was to look ceremonial without competing with the groom.

The invitation said black tie. Every other man arriving was in a tuxedo, so I went black but not Western: a black kaftan and trousers with a beaded, hand-embellished long coat over the top, all in one tone. No colour, no contrast, no bow tie. Black loafers with gold bits, gold cufflinks, sunglasses I should probably have taken off sooner. The rule I follow now — obey the colour the dress code asks for, then let the cut and the handwork do the talking.

An English garden wedding is the hardest brief a Nigerian man gets. Aso ebi would have been wrong; a dark suit would have been worse. I wore undyed cream linen, cut a size closer than the shop wanted, with a soft shoulder and no lining through the back. Brown suede loafers, no socks visible, no tie. Linen creases — that is the point of it, and the reason it works outdoors in July.

A fiftieth birthday owambe in a Park Lane ballroom — three hundred guests, aso ebi in emerald and gold, and a live band that started at ten. I wore a stone senator suit in a mid-weight wool-silk: mandarin collar, four buttons, no lapel to fight the embroidery everyone else was wearing. Trousers hemmed with a single break so they still read clean after four hours standing. Dark brown loafers rather than black, because black under warm ballroom light goes flat. What I got wrong: I left the jacket buttoned through dinner and the cloth held every crease by the time I stood for the toast — with a senator in wool-silk, unbutton as you sit. What I would repeat: choosing a colour outside the aso ebi palette. It reads respectful rather than competitive, and it photographs properly against everybody else's gold.