5 Best Books on African Adire Textiles
So you think you know about Adire? Check that against these sources
Adire literally means “tie and dye” techniques where raffia or thread has been applied to create certain patterns in cloth that is then typically vat dyed in indigo, with the ties keeping portions of the cloth from fully absorbing the dye, leaving patterns that can be seen against a darker background. When resist is applied, painstakingly applied in the form of cassava starch or candle wax, an adire eleko textile is born.
I list below the best books I have found on adire:
African Textiles. John Picton and John Mack. 1989.
A half-chapter in this book describes the two types of adire cloth: tie and stitch resist as well as starch resist. It details how they are produced, the materials used, and the different patterns and names given to the designs. For each named design, for example Ibadanbun (Ibadan is sweet), the number of spaces in the grid and a few key patterns give the designer a framework, within which some artistic license can be expressed. Some designs incorporate sayings such as “A rich man is more powerful than a medicine man”. The chapter includes lots of pictures of production techniques and the finished textiles.
Cloth in West African History. Colleen Kriger. 2006.
Kriger sees textiles as ‘oral narrative’ and in a chapter entitled The Worlds of Indigo Blue, focuses on a cotton wrapper made in Ibadan in the 1970s. She describes the materials used to make the fabric: white cotton cloth, cassava starch paste, application tools such as chicken feathers and palm ribs. The distinctive adire eleko style she describes incorporates a grid etched on the fabric in paste, which is then used to compose individual designs, in this instance conforming to the Olokun (a sea goddess) style. She discusses the individual designs within each grid square and how the compositions of similar pieces vary. The chapter also covers different types of indigo and dyeing techniques, and a potted history of the indigo cloth trade in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.
African Textiles. John Gillow. 2003.
Gillow gives examples of the variety of ways fabric has been resist dyed in West Africa. Stitched resist examples, with good quality photographs show how common Yoruba techniques have been applied, with some attention given to the names of the resulting designs. An overview of machine stitched resist designs follow, then a short section on starch resist done by hand and by stencil. This is generally a good source book for visual examples accompanied by detailed captions of each textile.
The Art of African Textiles. Duncan Clarke. 2002.
Although adire cloth is discussed only in the introduction to this book, the chapter includes several interesting old photographs of adire. In one of them piles of cloth are set up for display by vendors in the 1960s; in another, a group of women in the 1950s stand in traditional dress which includes some adire items, and finally a close-up of an adire eleko grid composition showing different etching techniques used.
Indigo. Jenny Balfour-Paul. 1998.
As a generic book on indigo use across the world, not just Africa, this book covers not only the history of its use, but its anthropological meaning, its chemical properties, and techniques for use. References to adire are sprinkled throughout the book, from showing and discussing the earliest known indigo textile from Mali, to trade in indigo and textiles, growing indigo, preparing for the dyeing process, finishing the cloth to create a burnished effect, to stitch and tie dyeing techniques and patterns.
These are all books I own and treasure which were all published in the last fifteen years. There are several others published in the 1970s which I have not had the opportunity to read. Have I missed any books you rate highly? If so, please leave a note.
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