Adire

Adire is a resist-dyeing textile technique developed by Yoruba women in southwestern Nigeria, in which cloth, traditionally cotton, is patterned before dyeing using one of several resist methods: adire oniko, in which sections of cloth are tightly tied with raffia to resist the dye; adire alabere, in which a design is stitched into the cloth with raffia before dyeing; and adire eleko, in which a paste made from cassava starch is hand-painted or stenciled directly onto the cloth as the resist. The cloth is then dyed, traditionally in indigo derived from the leaves of the Lonchocarpus cyanescens plant, and once the tying, stitching, or starch resist is removed, the pattern emerges in the original cloth color against the dyed indigo ground. The word adire itself means tied and dyed in the Yoruba language, and the technique, along with its characteristic deep indigo blue, remains an actively practiced textile tradition in Nigeria today, produced and traded especially by women in cities including Abeokuta and Ibadan.