Peju Layiwola’s Indigo Reimagined: Rethinking Àdìre in Yoruba Fashion and Textile Modernity brings together the authoritative views of art historians, literary critics, and other informed observers who encountered the exhibition entitled Indigo Reimagined held in 2019 at two venues in Lagos, Nigeria.

Curated by Peju Layiwola, a Professor of Art History at the University of Lagos, many witnessed the physical event in the gallery enclosures of the university on Lagos Mainland and at Alara on the Island, while many others experienced its afterlife in virtual spaces and other media platforms.

The exhibition has now been made to come alive again in the thoughtful essays and bright photographs of this book. The authors of the essays have described their perceptions of the phenomenal event in ways that a normal exhibition catalog cannot fully represent. They have stepped outside the gallery and media spaces framework to give clear pictures of what readers and researchers would have seen had they been at the exhibition.

This volume indexes the social history of Àdìre and communicates the awe of each contributor as they observe culture and creativity unfold and intersect in the fabric. The essays draw attention to how the literal and the figurative intertwine in Àdìre as fabric, delineate its importance in Yoruba culture and highlight its historical association with appareling humanity.