The Modern Tale Of Nigerian Wax- Resist Textiles

What do you think African art is? Masks or sculptures? The idea would be laughable to most Africans, who consider textile design the African art par excellence. But many forms of African textile design have disappeared. Now one more - wax- resist textile design - is under threat. Slowly, the last mills are closing their doors, one after the other: wax-resist textile design might soon be a lost art.

"African designs and designers like me are an endangered species," says Patricia Akarume who worked in a textile mill until it closed down in 2004. "Today, there are hundreds like me who have skills which have become redundant due to unfair global trade practices such as copying designs, counterfeiting trademarks and falsifying place of origin descriptions. African prints depict the heritage of our tribes and each motif and pattern tells a story." Before we tell Ms Akarume's story, the story of modern Nigerian wax-resist textiles, let us go back to where it all started.

Batik wax-resist textiles were first imported from Indonesia in the 19 th century. The African relish for colorful fabrics made them an instant success. The method of fabrication was soon customized and designs adapted to reflect local traditional culture.

The customization that produces the cloth beloved in the continent began by accident. Dutch textile manufacturers, in adapting the Indonesian wax-resist method to a dual-roller system, experienced a few technical problems: their method could not remove all the wax from the textiles, which left spots that resisted color and, to make matters worse, when a new color was added it would bleed onto the adjacent color. The dual-roller fabric was intended for the Indonesian market, but the Indonesians viewed the fabric with its spots and bleeding colors as spoiled and had no use for it. But, somehow, the "spoiled" fabric made its way to the African marketplace - and clients fell in love with it.

As African countries gained independence in the 20 th century, they built their own textile mills and started creating designs that reflect traditional African culture, where each ethnic group has its own preferences for colors and designs. To the knowing eye, the design on a textile reveals a story, often meaningful to the wearer. The colors may also provide information about the wearer's tribal origin, social standing, age and marital status. Dress plays an important role in African society and has even been used as a form of protest. Designs and the way they were worn often made quiet but effective commentary on the colonial establishment. Today Dutch manufacturers still retain the high end of the African wax-resist fabric market, but the rest of the market belongs to local manufacturers.

From riches to rags

The Multi-Fibre Arrangement (MFA), a quota system established in 1974 to protect the domestic textile industries of Canada, the U.S. and certain countries in Europe from emerging Asian producers, gave advantages to small textile-exporting countries that were not bound by quota constraints or that enjoyed preferential access to European and U.S. markets. Under the MFA, which created conditions benefiting it, the nascent African textile industry thrived, reaching a peak of over 200 mills in 1985.

The industry was sent reeling when new World Trade Organization (WTO) regulations came into effect in...