section_path: History of fashion/Africa
section_name: Africa
paragraph_text: Africa
  
  Additionally, there is a long history of fashion in West Africa. Cloth was used as a form of currency in trade with the Portuguese and Dutch as early as the 16th century, and locally produced cloth and cheaper European imports were assembled into new styles to accommodate the growing elite class of West Africans and resident gold and slave traders. There was an exceptionally strong tradition of weaving in the Oyo Empire, and the areas inhabited by the Igbo people.