Adire (textile art)

History

Initially produced in south-western Nigeria, adire textiles traveled to northern Africa through Yoruba traders and trader families. Some families who chose to migrate up north began creating adire cloths to market to other women. Because it is usually made by women, patterns and themes of the Adire are passed down from mother to daughter within families. However, certain motifs can depend on the artist's abilities and craftmanship, as well as skills taught from older generations. The patterns of Adire are often representations of plants, animals, tools, and conceptual themes. Traditional themes are categorized into geometric, figural, skewmorphic, letters, and celestiomorphic types.

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). In the early decades of the 20th century came new access to large quantities of imported shirting material via the spread of European textile merchants in Abeokuta and other Yoruba towns that caused a boom in these women's entrepreneurial and artistic efforts, making adire a major local craft in Abeokuta and Ibadan that attracted buyers from all over West Africa. Abeokuta is considered to be the capital of adire-making in Nigeria; however, some suggest that the large cities of Ibadan and Osogbo (Yorubaland) are more important in adire-making because adire dyeing began in Abeokuta when Egba women from Ibadan returned with this knowledge. The cloth's basic shape became that of two pieces of shirting material stitched together to create a woman's wrapper cloth. New techniques of resist dyeing developed.

The tradition of indigo dyeing goes back centuries in West Africa. The earliest known example is a cap from the Dogon kingdom in Mali dating to the 11th century, dyed in the oniko style.

However, by the end of the 1930s the spread of synthetic indigo, caustic soda, and an influx of new less skilled entrants caused quality problems and a still-present collapse in demand. Though the more complex and beautiful starch resist designs continued to be produced until the early 1970s, and despite a revival prompted largely by the interest of US Peace Corps workers in the 1960s, they never regained their earlier popularity. As of now, simplified stenciled designs and some better quality oniko and alabere designs are still produced, but local taste favours "kampala" (multi-coloured wax-resist cloth, sometimes considered as adire). However, there has been a recent revival of the Adire art by Nigerian professionals in the diaspora such as Dr Toyosi Craig, an innovator and energy expert, and Nigerian artisans like Nike Davies-Okundaye, who inspire younger designers ilike Amaka Osakwe (with her label Maki-Oh). Political figures and celebrities such as Michelle Obama and Lupita Nyong'o have worn adire-inspired clothes recently. Also, Bamidele Abiodun, the wife of the governor of Ogun State, launched Adire Market Week in 2022 as an initiative meant to promote adire and protect local textile manufacturers.