These below pictures show how people of Abeokuta, Ogun State, western Nigeria produce native fabric popularly known as Adire.
Adire textile is made predominantly by Yoruba women, using a variety of resist dye techniques.
As the translation of the name suggests, the earliest pieces of this type were probably simple tied designs on cotton cloth handspun and woven locally (rather like those still produced in Mali).
But in the early decades of the 20th century new access to large quantities of imported textile material via the spread of European merchants in Abeokuta and other Yoruba towns caused a boom in these women’s entrepreneurial and artistic efforts, making adire a major local craft in Abeokuta and Ibadan, attracting buyers from all over West Africa.
The cloth’s basic shape became that of two pieces of shirting material stitched together to create a women’s wrapper cloth.
In the present day simplified stencilled designs and some better quality tie & die and stitch-resist designs are still produced, but local taste favours “Kampa” (multi-coloured wax resist cloth, sometimes also known as adire by a few people)
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