Ornate regalia on head of noblewoman from North Africa (8)
I believe the answer is:
algerian
'from north africa' is the definition.
(Algeria is in North Africa)
'ornate regalia on head of noblewoman' is the wordplay.
'ornate' indicates anagramming the letters (an unusual or complex form of the letters).
'on' says to put letters next to each other.
'head of' indicates taking the first letters.
The initial letter of 'noblewoman' is 'n'.
'regalia' with letters rearranged gives 'algeria'.
'algeria'+'n'='ALGERIAN'
(Other definitions for algerian that I've seen before include "Foreign" , "Native of a North African country" , "Native of Oran" .)