Adire, the Yoruba resist cloth

Adire is indigo resist-dyeing as the Yoruba developed it, centred on Abeokuta. The technique names tell you how a cloth was made, and the reverse side tells you whether it was made that way at all.

What the word covers

Adire means, roughly, tied and dyed, and it names a family of Yoruba cloths patterned by keeping the dye out rather than putting colour in. Whatever the resist covers stays pale; everything else goes into the indigo. The craft has historically been women's work, with Abeokuta as its capital and the Itoku market there still the place most associated with it, alongside a strong tradition in Ibadan.

Three techniques, three names

• Adire oniko is the tied version. Sections of cloth are bound with raffia, often around seeds or pebbles, and the bindings leave rings, circles and sunbursts where the dye could not reach.
• Adire alabere is stitched. Patterns are sewn into the cloth, the thread pulled tight before dyeing and cut out after, leaving fine lined patterns with the slight irregularity of hand stitching.
• Adire eleko is the painted one. Cassava starch paste is applied by hand or through a stencil, and the starch resists the dye. The freehand versions, traditionally painted by women with feathers and thin tools, are the most intricate cloths in the family, and named designs carry meanings the way named wax prints do.

The indigo

Traditional adire is dyed with indigo fermented from local leaves, built up in repeated dips: the cloth comes out greenish and oxidises to blue in the air, and depth of colour is a count of how many times it went in. Much contemporary adire uses synthetic indigo and related vat dyes, and a hot-wax resist known as kampala has largely joined the older starch method. That is evolution rather than fraud, but it is worth knowing which one you are paying for.

Hand-resisted or printed imitation

Screen-printed cloth sold as adire exists in volume, and the checks are close to the ones for wax print.

• Turn it over. Resist-dyeing goes through the cloth, so the pattern should be nearly as strong on the reverse. A pale, washed-out back is a print.
• Look for repetition. Hand-tied and hand-painted patterns never repeat exactly; a motif that recurs with mechanical precision came from a screen.
• New real indigo often crocks, meaning a little blue lifts onto a damp white cloth at first. Light transfer on new cloth is normal and settles. Heavy dye lifting off forever is just bad dye.

Washing it

• Cold water, mild soap, and washed alone for the first several washes, because indigo bleeds before it settles.
• No harsh detergent or bleach, which strip indigo visibly fast.
• Dry in the shade. Sun fades indigo faster than washing does.
• Iron on the reverse.

Indigo mellows rather than holds its first depth, and well-made adire wears that softening the way good denim does, which is not a coincidence: it is the same dye.