Menu

Fashioning Africa

Documenting changing fashion in Africa post-1960

Primary Menu

Skip to content
  • Home
  • Find Out More About the Project
    • Collecting Panel
    • Sourcing the New Collection
    • Access and Events
    • Textiles Study Day
    • Textiles Training and Skills Development
    • Further Reading
  • Explore The New Collection
    • Art & Photography
    • Garments
    • Textiles
    • Accessories
    • View by Country
  • See Exhibition and Display Archives
    • Fashion Cities Africa Exhibition
      • Fashion Cities Africa Films
      • Featured Designers
      • Fashion Cities Africa by Hannah Azieb Pool
    • Fashion Cities Africa: Brighton Stories Display
    • Framing Fashion Display
    • Object Journeys Displays
      • Township Journeys
      • Aso Oke: A Celebration of Style
  • Acknowledgements
Search
Home »Posts tagged   »  Nigeria

Tag: Nigeria

a blue tunic dyed with indigo being held up to the camera

R6147/3 Adire Buba by Nike Davies-Okundaye

Posted on

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 …

CategoriesExplore Fashion CollectionsTagsadire, garments, Indigo, Nigeria, Nike

a blue tunic dyed with indigo being held up to the camera

R6147/2 Adire Buba by Nike Davies-Okundaye

Posted on

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 Read More …

CategoriesExplore Fashion CollectionsTagsadire, garments, Nigeria, Nike

a long cotton shirt dress made of indigo adire and aso-oke fabric

R6147/1 Shirt by Nike Davies-Okundaye

Posted on

This women’s long shirt was created by Nigerian designer and textile artist Nike Davies-Okundaye. The cloth was hand-woven in 1910 by Mrs Ibitola, Nike’s great grandmother. Mrs Ibitola lived in Ede, Osun State and was the head weaver in the village before her death at the age of 86. The patches sewn onto the garment Read More …

CategoriesExplore Fashion CollectionsTagsadire, aso-oke, garments, Nigeria, Nike

strip woven cotton fabric in dark and pale blue stripes

R6040/3 Headwrap; Gele

Posted on

This gele was was bought by the owner in Nigeria in the late 1970s. She remembers wearing it to a party when she was a university student in the early 1980s. It is made from woven blue striped fabric. A gele is an elaborate headwrap worn by Yoruba women as part of a matching outfit, Read More …

CategoriesExplore Accessories and Object CollectionsTagsAccessories Hair Styling & Make Up, gele, Nigeria

Indigo cloth with a grid pattern

R6139/6 Textile; Adire

Posted on

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 …

CategoriesExplore Flat Textile CollectionsTagsadire, Indigo, Nigeria, Textile examples, textiles

an indigo adire coat

R6139/5 Adire Coat by Nike Davies-Okundaye

Posted on

This coat by Nigerian designer and textile artist Nike Davies-Okundaye is made from adire, a cloth dyed with indigo using resist dye techniques to create patterns . This design was created using a mixture of stitch resist (adire alabare) and starch resist (adire eleko) dying techniques on white imported sheeting fabric with pre-existing pink printed Read More …

CategoriesExplore Fashion CollectionsTagsadire, garments, Nigeria, Nike

rectangular cloth dyed with indigo in striped pattern

R6139/4 Textile; Adire

Posted on

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 …

CategoriesExplore Flat Textile CollectionsTagsadire, Indigo, Nigeria, Textile examples

Narrow weave strip cotton cloth aso-oke fabric, with floating threads, beige with blue metallic stripes.

R6139/1 Textile; Aso-oke

Posted on

This cloth is an example of an aso-oke style called eleya-sanyan, with an inlaid striped design in two metallic blue shades. Sanyan is a classic style of aso-oke which is woven from from anaphe wild silk, while ‘elaye’ refers to the open work holes in the cloth that form the structural decoration along with the Read More …

CategoriesExplore Flat Textile CollectionsTagsaso-oke, Nigeria, Textile examples, textiles

Burgundy and pale pink men's fila hat with silver thread, made from strip woven aso-oke cloth.

R6135/6 Hat; Fila

Posted on

This aso-oke fila was worn by Shola Bello, a British Nigerian man, at his wedding. Aso-oke translates as ‘top cloth’ or ‘high status cloth’ and was traditionally narrow strip-woven by men. It is a popular choice for special occasion outfits for Yoruba people in Nigeria and in the UK. While some groom’s outfits are entirely Read More …

CategoriesExplore Accessories and Object CollectionsTagsAccessories Hair Styling & Make Up, diaspora, Nigeria, wedding

Man's robe and trousers in a white fabric woven with geometric designs and a silver metallic trim.

R6135/3-5 Aso-oke outfit

Posted on

This Yoruba groom’s outfit was worn by Shola Bello at his wedding. He wore white to match with his bride, Titi, whose outfit was also collected by the Museum. This intricately woven fabric was bought and made in Lagos, Nigeria, where it is known locally as Guinea Brocade. It was made by a tailor who Read More …

CategoriesExplore Fashion CollectionsTagsdiaspora, garments, Nigeria, wedding

Post navigation

← Older posts
Copyright © 2025 Fashioning Africa. All Rights Reserved. | Catch Responsive by Catch Themes
Scroll Up
  • Home
  • Find Out More About the Project
    • Collecting Panel
    • Sourcing the New Collection
    • Access and Events
    • Textiles Study Day
    • Textiles Training and Skills Development
    • Further Reading
  • Explore The New Collection
    • Art & Photography
    • Garments
    • Textiles
    • Accessories
    • View by Country
  • See Exhibition and Display Archives
    • Fashion Cities Africa Exhibition
      • Fashion Cities Africa Films
      • Featured Designers
      • Fashion Cities Africa by Hannah Azieb Pool
    • Fashion Cities Africa: Brighton Stories Display
    • Framing Fashion Display
    • Object Journeys Displays
      • Township Journeys
      • Aso Oke: A Celebration of Style
  • Acknowledgements
Cookies
We use cookies to improve the functionality of our website.

Please accept these or set your preferences.
Functional Always active
The technical storage or access is strictly necessary for the legitimate purpose of enabling the use of a specific service explicitly requested by the subscriber or user, or for the sole purpose of carrying out the transmission of a communication over an electronic communications network.
Preferences
The technical storage or access is necessary for the legitimate purpose of storing preferences that are not requested by the subscriber or user.
Statistics
The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for statistical purposes. The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for anonymous statistical purposes. Without a subpoena, voluntary compliance on the part of your Internet Service Provider, or additional records from a third party, information stored or retrieved for this purpose alone cannot usually be used to identify you.
Marketing
The technical storage or access is required to create user profiles to send advertising, or to track the user on a website or across several websites for similar marketing purposes.
Manage options Manage services Manage {vendor_count} vendors Read more about these purposes
View preferences
{title} {title} {title}