What are the various methods to produce African fabrics?

African fabrics are considered as a major form of expressions that people of Africa use to define themselves. They used these fabrics for both personal adornment and a means of communication. Africa is a large continent which houses numerous tribes and cultures. Every tribe and culture got its unique way of representing art on clothes. The patterns, color, and designs are vibrant and exclusive in distinct types of clothes. There is spiritual and historical significance in dyes, colors, type of threads, and other decorative elements. Many people buy African fabrics dresses due to its individuality.

Methods to produce African fabrics

From earlier days, African clothes are made of colorful fibers. These fibers are made up of cotton, wool, raffia, silk, tree bark, jute, flax, and bast fibers. These fibers are traditionally used for weaving linen clothes. Apart from weaving, there are other cloth production methods like dyeing, applique, embroidery, and printing techniques. In applique technique, pieces of designer fabrics are sewn directly on the cloth. Vivid fibers are embroidered to decorate the cloth and giving it patterns and designs. 

Dyeing is done in two different methods, resist dyeing and mud dyeing. The resist dyeing method is very popular in West African culture. Different methods are applied to protect some parts of the cloth while other parts are dyed. The most common methods of resist dyeing are batik, sew, and tie and dye. 

There are many African fabrics store where you will find clothes made of resist dyeing techniques. In mud dyeing, the cloth is first prepared for dyeing by soaking pounded leaves of Bogolon. This Bogolon solution is dark in color and allows the dye to adhere with the cloth. Mud dye is applied on clothes using sticks, reeds, feathers etc.

Most of the African clothing is printed now instead of dyeing and other techniques. Computerized printing of clothes is an easy way but handmade fabrics are still available in many parts of Africa still today. There are genuine African fabrics for sale online, contact us to know more.