Buba (Museum Accession number R6147/2)
Women’s Buba with adire cowrie shell design 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 dyed adire called Oniko. The process is time consuming and requires a high degree of skill, making it a desirable and expensive. The pattern was designed in Nike’s gallery at Ogidi Ijumu during a workshop in the 1990s. The cowrie shell design represents old currency and is a symbol of money. Collected as part of the Fashioning Africa project.
Creator: Nike Davies-Okundaye
Place: Nigeria, West Africa, Africa
Date: 1990
At the timing of writing, professional photography of all of the new collection has not been completed due to Covid 19. The image of the buba featured here was take by researcher Harriet Hughes when she visited the Nike Art Gallery in Lagos.
The following is extracted from a biography of Nike written by Harriet Hughes:
‘Nike Okundaye was born in the Yoruba town of Ogidi-Ijimu, Kogi state to a family of craftspeople. Her great grandmother was head of the weavers in Ogidi. She is multi talented and has mastered textile arts, beadwork, painting and was innovative in using adire for creating new fashions and design.’
See more pieces by Nike Davies-Okundaye in the Fashioning Africa collection
