Documenting changing fashion in Africa post-1960
This women’s Buba made of adire fabric in a water design is by Nigerian designer and textile artist Nike Davies-Okundaye. Adire is a type of textile where fabric is dyed with indigo, with patterns being created using different techniques to resist the dye. This is an example of tie and dyed adire called adire oniko. Read More …
Adire eleko indigo resist dyed cloth. The design is comprised of circles in square grids with the text ‘SanumiOluwa’ which means ‘Lord have mercy on me’ in Yoruba. The pattern is created using the starch resist (adire eleko) technique: cassava paste is applied to cloth through a stencil or painted on, areas where this is Read More …
Adire is a type of textile where fabric is dyed with indigo, with patterns being created using different techniques to resist the dye. This is an example of adire alabare, where the resist pattern has been created using machine stitching which is later removed to reveal the design. Collected as part of the Fashioning Africa Read More …
This two piece outfit is made from white cotton with a hand-dyed indigo tie-dyed design. It was made by designer Ainé Pathé Ouédraogo for his label Pathé’O. Born in Burkina Faso, Ouédraogo went on to set up his popular label in Abidjan in the 1970s. He subsequently became prominent in the 1990s when he began Read More …
This Hausa indigo robe has been dyed with a concentrated indigo dye to give it a deep, dark blue colour and a glazed sheen. It was originally collected as a new, unworn piece in the 1970s from Northern Nigeria. The dye is so concentrated that it can still rub off on contact with other material. Read More …