In Senegal, the colour blue breathes through fabric, memory, and time. From ancestral dye to NuNu Design, indigo in Senegal continues to flow like water—connecting memory, identity, craft, and culture.
In this blog piece, HAB researcher and IIAS Affiliated Fellow Hsiao-Chi Chu (Taipei National University of the Arts, Taiwan) shares her visit to indigo studios around Dakar, Senegal, while there for the Africa-Asia 3 conference-festival and the Indigo Dialogues roundtable. In conversation with Senegalese dyer and fashion designer Marie Madeleine “Nunu” Diouf, they reflect on the importance of indigo to Senegal, of marrying the past with the present through her designs, and empowering indigo as a craft and entry point for community collaboration.
This article was published in Humanities Across Borders programme (HAB) on October 25, 2025.
Breathing Blue: Indigo in Senegal and NuNu Design
This past June, I travelled to Dakar, Senegal for the Africa-Asia: A New Axis of Knowledge 3 conference-festival. While at the conference, I kept thinking about visiting Indigo Studio or artists here. One afternoon, I was walking around the streets of Dakar when I suddenly found a store called NuNu Design. The moment I stepped inside, I felt the air itself was alive with shades of blue, flowing and breathing like a gentle ocean. The colours carried with them echoes of the past in Senegal, a living memory dyed into fabric and time.
Memory of Water: The Origin of Indigo
Dakar, the capital of Senegal, is at the westernmost point of the African continent and is a port city born from the sea. The flow of the tides brings a diverse and dynamic cultural landscape, making it an intersection where indigenous traditions, Islamic beliefs, and colonial heritage meet. The port is the heart of Dakar, also carrying the flow of trade and witnessing the ideas and inspirations. From this city, people can still take a ferry to the historic Island of Gorée, where memories of the slave trade still echo through time on the sea breeze.
Downtown Dakar city near the Marche Kermel textile market. Hsiao-Chi Chu, Dakar, Senegal (June 2025)
UNESCO Heritage site: Island of Gorée off the coast of Dakar. Hsiao-Chi Chu, Dakar, Senegal (June 2025)
Through observation, Senegalese clothing reveals a rich fusion of ancient customs and modern influences. Traditional garments are not expressions of style but they embody layers of history and cultural identity woven into daily life.
Within this cultural landscape, indigo is far more than a dye. It embodies how identity, memory, and day-to-day existence are interwoven. Indigo weaving and dyeing have deep roots in West African countries such as Senegal and Mali. Beyond aesthetics, blue carries protective meaning. Indigo is believed to unite the soul with nature, shielding the body and protecting against bad luck. Indigo-dyed fabric accompanies life’s most significant moments like weddings, births, and funerals, enveloping the body and soul like the “skin of life.”
In Senegal, peoples repeatedly dip, wring, and expose the cloth to the sun, preserving centuries of craft memory in a dialogue between water and cloth. They use plants as dyes colours from the earth and transformed by water and air. The fabric rests in the dye vat, oxidising in the sun. Like the breathing beat of nature, the blue hues shift in response to the wind and water. From weddings and festivities to daily wear, handmade indigo-dyed fabric presents a vivid life.
In Senegal, weaving is a language. Through the rhythm of thread and hand, people tell stories of the land, of memory, and of life. Hsiao-Chi Chu, Dakar, Senegal (June 2025)
However, indigo in Senegal also has been affected by industrial dyes gradually replacing natural plant-based dyeing. This custom was facing extinction due to the extensive use of commercial dyes and the growth of urbanisation.
Side by side of NuNu Design’s indigo dye fabrics via industrial dyes. Hsiao-Chi Chu, Dakar, Senegal (June 2025)
NuNu‘s Rediscovering: The Blue from Memory
A few afternoons later, I walked into NuNu Design again. Designer Marie Madeleine Diouf (known as NuNu) was there. While I was selecting fabrics, I chatted with her in my poor French. She recalls seeing dancers wearing blue during festivals.
“I’ve known since childhood that life is blue for me,” she said.
NuNu Design shop in Dakar. Hsiao-Chi Chu, Dakar, Senegal (June 2025)
Before becoming a designer, NuNu worked in other fields for over a decade. In 2015, she decided to return to the colour memories of her ancestors and founded NuNu Design. Starting in her small home dye vat, she relearned traditional dyeing techniques, translating the memory of blue into a contemporary language.
Video screencap of interview with Sengalese designer and artistic director of Nunu Design, Marie Madeleine “Nunu” Diouf
This was shared to me by Nunu while visiting her shop. Le Galerie de 19M, Paris, France (2023) instagram.com/reel/CueTYl-rKY3/?igsh=Z2Vhemw0N3Fsc3ly
Her work incorporates classic West African fabrics, such as bazin, a glossy fabric and Senegalese handwoven fabrics, using indigo as a primary colour, supplemented by natural dyes such as plants, bark, and clay. Sometimes, she also incorporates indigo dyeing techniques into her new collections, using recycled denim as a base.
“Blue symbolises my identity and the depths of Senegal’s emotions,” NuNu says to me.
“My art serves as a safeguard for this memory and fulfils my obligation.”
Echoes of Blue: The Cycle of Water and Culture
For NuNu, bringing back indigo dyeing signifies a path towards reconnection and revitalisation. It involves establishing dyeing workshops and residency initiatives between urban and rural areas, motivating local women and youth to acquire skills in natural dyeing methods. She also has collaborated with residents near Somone and Ngaring in Senegal and established another brand, BANU. Moreover, for the past years, she has been researching alternative dyes, experimenting with new processes based on natural ingredients, such as pigments from cactus, eucalyptus, and various tree barks, to create unique colors that are very different from modern dyes. Through these efforts, indigo transforms into both a craft and a core for community collaboration.
Video screencap of the Indigo dyeing process at BANU. BANU, Somone, Senegal (2025). instagram.com/reel/DFlQ0rDN07I/?igsh=djh5bHh0bjdwMDFi
NuNu’s workshop carries both her creations and the empowerment of new life for locals. She has held live dyeing demonstrations, including an exhibition at the Musée Théodore Monod and participated in Chanel’s Le 19M project, collaborating with Senegalese dyers, to bring this ancient West African craft back to the international stage.
Side by side of BANU’s natural indigo dye fabrics. Hsiao-Chi Chu, Dakar, Senegal (June 2025)
In her store, people can see many of NuNu’s collections based on recycled denim. After being re-dyed with indigo, the textures of old garments become imbued with deep memories. It’s a stitching together of time, a process of restoration that flows from consumer culture back to the rhythms of craftsmanship.
Indigo dyeing is a river that flows for NuNu.
“Every time I dye cloth, it’s like a conversation with my memory and family, and also with the land and water,” she said.
Her brand is more than just a clothing line. It is a movement advocating empowerment and cultural sovereignty. She develops skills, provides jobs, and supports more people in rediscovering the importance of their hands through her dyeing workshop.
Against the backdrop of capitalism and globalisation, there is a soft countercurrent. Rather than resisting modernity, it self-renews as it distributes, nourishes, and permeates like water. The smell of indigo, like the sea and memories, was still in the air when I left her store. It’s Senegal’s deep blue, pouring from the ground to the world and subtly pulsing through time.
Like ripples on a sunlit sea stirred by the wind, indigo in Senegal drifts through memory and time.
References
- NuNu Design: https://www.instagram.com/nunudesignbydk/
- BaNu: https://www.instagram.com/banudyeing/
- Sur le fil : de Dakar à Paris Exhibition (17.05 to 30.07.2023): https://www.le19m.com/agenda/sur-le-fil-de-dakar-a-paris-2
織事｜Weave the Edge 
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