Adire (textile art)

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.{{Cite journal |last=Renne |first=Elisha P. |date=2020-01-02 |title=Reinterpreting Adire Cloth in Northern Nigeria |url=https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00404969.2020.1747372 |journal=Textile History |language=en |volume=51 |issue=1 |pages=60–85 |doi=10.1080/00404969.2020.1747372 |issn=0040-4969}} 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. {{Cite journal |last=Areo |first=MO |last2=Kalilu |first2=ROR |date=2013-05-03 |title=<i>Adire</i> in South-western Nigeria: Geography of the Centres |url=http://dx.doi.org/10.4314/afrrev.v7i2.22 |journal=African Research Review |volume=7 |issue=2 |doi=10.4314/afrrev.v7i2.22 |issn=2070-0083}}

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;{{Cite web |date=24 July 2016 |title=A Short History of Adire |url=https://guardian.ng/life/culture-lifestyle/a-short-history-of-adire/ |access-date=27 August 2022 |website=The Guardian Nigeria |language=en-US}} 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.{{Cite book|title=Adire cloth in Nigeria|last=Simmonds|first=Doig|publisher=Doig D, Simmonds; Institute of African Studies, University of Ibadan.|year=2016|location=Ibadan|pages=11}} The cloth's basic shape became that of two pieces of shirting material stitched together to create a woman's wrapper cloth.{{Cite web |title=Adire Cloth of the Yorubas |url=https://www.adireafricantextiles.com/textiles-resources-sub-saharan-africa/some-major-west-african-textile-traditions/adire-cloth-of-the-yorubas/ |access-date=27 August 2022 |website=Adire African Textiles |language=en-US}} 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.

File:Adire Market Week.jpg and his wife, with the former governor of Ogun State, Segun Osoba, and his wife, and Governor Dapo Abiodun of Ogun State and his wife Bamidele Abiodun at the main stage of Adire Market Week, 9 April 2022]]

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,{{Cite book|title=Fashion Cities Africa|others=Pool, Hannah, 1974-, Royal Pavilion, Art Gallery, and Museums.|year=2016|isbn=9781783206117|location=Bristol, UK|pages=98–99|oclc=946010715|last1 = Pool|first1 = Hannah Azieb}} 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{{Cite web |date=18 April 2022 |title=Foreign Manufacturers Killing Local Adire Fabric Industry—Abiodun {{!}} Business Post Nigeria |url=https://businesspost.ng/economy/foreign-manufacturers-killing-local-adire-fabric-industry-abiodun/ |access-date=31 May 2022 |language=en-GB}} in 2022 as an initiative meant to promote adire and protect local textile manufacturers.{{Cite web |date=16 April 2022 |title=Ogun governor, wife raise hope for better fashion industry |url=https://guardian.ng/saturday-magazine/ogun-governor-wife-raise-hope-for-better-fashion-industry/ |access-date=31 May 2022 |website=The Guardian Nigeria |language=en-US}}

File:Tie and Dye to the rescue (Adire).jpg

Today, there are three primary resist techniques used in Nigeria:

• Oniko: this process involves tying raffia around hundreds of individual corn kernels or pebbles to produce small white circles on a blue background. The fabric can also be twisted and tied on itself or folded into stripes.
• Alabere: Stitching raffia onto the fabric in a pattern prior to dyeing. The raffia palm is stripped, and the spine sewn into the fabric. After dyeing the raffia is usually ripped out, although some choose to leave it in and let wear and tear on the garment slowly reveal the design.
• Eleko: Resist dyeing with cassava paste painted onto the fabric. Traditionally done with different size chicken feathers, calabash carved into different designs are also used, in a manner similar to block printing. Since the early twentieth century, metal stencils cut from the sheets of tin that lined tea chests have also been used.{{Cite book|title=Indigo Quilts|last=Triplett|first=Kay and Lori Lee|publisher=C&T Publishing|year=2015|isbn=978-1-61745-243-7|location=Concord, CA|pages=14–18}}{{Cite web|url=http://www.ctpub.com/blog/adire-african-indigo-resist/|title=Adire: African Resist|last=Triplett|first=Lori Lee|date=14 October 2015|website=C&T Publishing|access-date=1 April 2016}}

Most of the designs are named, with popular ones including the jubilee pattern (first produced for the silver jubilee of George V and Queen Mary in 1935), Olokun ("goddess of the sea"),{{Cite book|title=Adirẹ cloth in Nigeria, 1971–2016|publisher=Doig D. Simmonds|editor1=Simmonds, Doig| editor2= Oyelola, Pat |editor3= Ọkẹ, Ṣẹgun|year=2016|isbn=9780993532405|edition=Second|location=[Place of publication not identified]|pages=6–7|oclc=960700743}} Sunbebe ("lifting up of the beads"){{Cite book|title=Adire cloth in Nigeria|last=Simmonds|first=Doig|publisher=University of Ibadan|year=2016|isbn=978-0-9935324-0-5|location=Nigeria|pages=49}} and Ibadandun ("Ibadan is sweet").{{Cite book|title=Adirẹ cloth in Nigeria, 1971–2016|editor1=Simmonds| editor2= Oyelola |editor3= Ọkẹ|edition=Second|pages=47–48|oclc=960700743}}

Nigeria is also known for its two-tone indigo resist designs, created by repeat dyeing of cloth painted with cassava root paste to create a deep blue; the paste is then washed out and the cloth dyed a final time. Quality cloth is dyed 25 or more times to create a deep blue-black color before the paste is washed out. Additional forms of indigo resist-dyeing exist in other parts of West Africa; for example, the Bamana of Mali use mud resist, while Senegalese dyers use rice paste rather than cassava root, and the Ndop of Cameroon use both stitch resist and wax resist.

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• [https://www.adireafricantextiles.com/textiles-resources-sub-saharan-africa/some-major-west-african-textile-traditions/adire-cloth-of-the-yorubas/ Adire Cloth of the Yorubas], adireafricantextiles.com.

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Category:Nigerian clothing

Category:Textile arts of Africa

Category:Yoruba art

Category:Yoruba culture