As of summer 2020, tie-dye rapidly emerged and became one of the year's biggest and most accessible fashion trends. As global restrictions prompted consumers to reduce consumption, fashion conscious millennials everywhere wanted to learn how to colour-bomb their plain white t-shirts. When tie-dye began to loosen its association with Woodstock nostalgia, it quickly infiltrated the runways of brands such as Prada, Michael Kors, and Urban Outfitters. Today, fast fashion induced tie-dye techniques require simple processes to meet the demands of mass production.

History of Tie-Dye in Africa

Tie-dye is a complex, social and historical practice. As one of the oldest colouring techniques, the art of dye resistance methods ‘seem to have originated independently around the world’, points out Lee Talbot, curator of George Washington University’s Textile Museum. While the origins of tie-dye are spatially scattered, knowledge of its historical roots is both informed and limited by its archival potential. Unlike other artistic mediums, textiles and fabrics decay relatively quickly, which means surviving materials are difficult to trace. 

Historians note that its roots include, but are not limited to, India, Indonesia, and Japan. The earliest examples of textile-dyeing techniques are those of the Bandhani, dating back around 4000 BC, from the Indus Valley Civilization which we now know today as Peru. Chinese fabrics were fashioned from the fifth to sixth century AD. Discoveries were made along trade routes and as far as Egypt and Turkistan. In Africa, dye resistant textiles were found by archaeologists excavating a cliff at the Bandiagara Escarpment in Mali. The oldest of these remnants date from the 11th century CE, and future excavations may oppose suggestions that one culture ‘invented’ the tie-dye technique. 

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Though African tie-dye techniques were fostered during the 11th century, their popularisation and commercialisation as a trade emerged at the dawn of the 20th century. The city of Abeokuta, southwest of Nigeria, is widely cited for sparking the craft, and emerging as the centre for cotton production, weaving and dying. Like the relentless nature of the dye itself, the trade networks quickly spread across West Africa. At the height of production in the 1920s, wrappers were sold as far and wide as Ghana, Congo, and Senegal ― with Senegalese merchants purchasing as many as 2000 wrappers a day. 

Despite boasting a promising future, the trade’s promise was shadowed by a regional and economic decline at the end of the 1930s. Colonialism and globalisation put the trade at its knees, deterring its outreach. Europe continued to place restrictions against exporting the cloth during World War II. In the end, the African tie-dye industry was flooded with cheap printed clothes from European, African, and Asian textile mills. Not only did this eclipse the legacy of African tie-dye fabrics ― the introduction of cheap fabrics from Europe suggested that ‘fast fashion’ isn’t a novel invention, but a by-product of Europe’s appropriation of the African textile industry. 

African tie-dye trade was restored at the brink of extinction thanks to the industrialisation of mediums such as chemical dyes. By the 1960’s, tie-dye evolved beyond its monochromatic and indigo hues to a spectrum of green, red, orange and yellow. In true Nigerian maximalist fashion, locals creatively began using these fabrics as tablecloths, draping and bedspreads. Soon indigenous cassava pastes, which were traditionally used as a resist agent, were swiftly swapped with hot wax or paraffin. 

African tie-dye may not be cut from the same cloth as the rest of the world, but its influence in keeping the tie-dye global pulse alive is undeniable. West Africans influenced the transformation of shibori, the ancient Japanese tie-dye technique born in the 1600s. As the techniques traditionally involved string and plucking methods, shibori directly translates to “wring or squeeze”. Textile historian Yoshiko Iwamoto Wada writes that when the Japanese shibori tie-dyeing industry was on the verge of collapse Japanese artisans, with the backing of the Japanese government, began producing and specifically marketing the shibori fabrics to Africa and Europe. Traditionally, shibori fabrics were 15 inches. Over time, these dimensions were changed to 45 inches to match the standards of Nigerian wrappers and satisfy African consumers. 

The painstaking and time-consuming techniques involved in traditional African tie-dye methods contribute to the art forms’ declining presence. Take adire for instance, which means ‘tie-dye’ in Yoruba, a resistant-dyed cloth produced by the Yoruba people from southwestern Nigeria. The technique of dying is executed by a matriarch of “two female specialists-dyers (alaro), who control production and marketing of adire, and decorators (aladire), who create the resist patterns”. At first, there were two basic resist techniques used to create the sharpness between blue and white, namely adire oniko and adire eleko. With adire oniko, cotton is tied with a raffia to resist the dye, and adire eleko makes use of starchy maize or cassava paste hand-painted onto the surface of the cloth. The dye used is a mixture of natural indigo dye made from indigo leaves, water, and ash. These are stirred in clay pots over the course of several days. In Yoruba custom, storytelling is as integral to adire as the processes that shape its craft. The symbols etched in these tie-dye patterns are inspired by and reflect the cornerstone of Yoruba culture, namely: nature, religion and philosophy.

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Today, several African designers continue to pay homage to the traditional dye-resistant fabrics by introducing tie-dye into mainstream fashion. Nigerian-owned brand Orange Culture is more than a high-end fashion line; it’s a movement that marries print fabrics, colour, and contemporary streetwear. The brand’s signature is best captured by its experiment with androgynous and asymmetrical designs, embellished with adire chiffon details. On the Eastern side of the continent, fashion line KikoRomeo uses natural fibres and hand-dyed garments to contribute to sustainable fashion in Kenya. One of their most iconic pieces, the Bumi jumpsuit, is an all-tie-dye fashion exclamation showcasing the brand’s unique ability to balance colourful couture and ready-to-wear silhouettes.

Artist and entrepreneur, Nike Davies-Okundaye, believes the survival of the adire is uncertain. “No one wants to do it anymore… it’s just too much work and the money is too small,” she shared in an interview with The Establishment. Hailed as the contemporary queen of adire, Davies-Okundaye has been training Arts and Culture students in traditional tie-dye techniques at the Nike Center in Osogbo. Her aspirations include opening a textile museum in Lagos. 

The abovementioned artists are exemplary of owning identities independent of global fashion trends. They disprove myths that African designers favour the appeal of mass production over the preservation of culture.