What does ADIRE stand for? 

Adire

Adire textile is the indigo dyed cloth made in south western Nigeria by Yoruba women, using a variety of resist dye techniques. As the translation of the name suggests, the earliest pieces of this type were probably simple tied designs on cotton cloth handspun and woven locally, but in the early decades of the 20th century new access to large quantities of imported shirting material via the spread of European textile merchants in Abeokuta and other Yoruba towns caused a boom in these women's entrepreneurial and artistic efforts, making adire a major local craft in Abeokuta and Ibadan, attracting buyers from all over West Africa. The cloth's basic shape became that of two pieces of shirting material stitched together to create a women's wrapper cloth. New techniques of resist dyeing developed, such as "adire eleko", along with a new style more suited to rapid mass production. Most of the designs were named, with popular ones including the jubilee pattern, Olokun, and Ibadadun.

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