Wax, Water and Indigo
After two decades in public radio, Aishah Rashied Hyman founded BODDO Studio, translating West African textile traditions into pillows, slipcovers and ottomans sewn by a co-op of immigrant women in Atlanta.
Adire begins with wax. The pattern is drawn onto cotton, the cloth is lowered into indigo, and wherever the wax has gone the dye cannot follow. When the wax is lifted away, the design appears in pale relief against the blue. It is one of the most patient ways ever devised to make a picture, and it sits at the heart of BODDO Studio.
A second career, begun in earnest
Aishah Rashied Hyman spent two decades in public media, many of those years at WABE, Atlanta's public radio station. A health scare in 2024, she told the station, prompted her to found BODDO, a home goods line drawn from West African textile traditions.
"The textiles have a lot of symbolism and story in them," she said. Her palette came from the orisha: "My inspiration was really Yemaya and Oshun, in terms of color." The names she gives her slipcover colorways carry the same lyricism. Osun River Blues. Naija Moonwater. Lemon Lime Lagos. Sun-Kissed Pyramids.
Made in the neighborhood
The pieces are made in small batches, primarily by the Amani Women's Co-op, a nonprofit sewing house that trains immigrant women, many from East Africa and Afghanistan, to sew as a livelihood. Hyman found it the simplest way possible. "I would pass the facility on a daily basis on my way home from work," she said.
That arrangement reflects something she has been explicit about: "That's really important to me, that we're not just consumers." BODDO's events have followed the same instinct, including a concept-store pop-up with panels featuring other Black women makers.
What to bring home
The Kuba Cloth Pillow, $95, uses handwoven Congolese cloth made from rolled palm leaves. The Indigo Pillow, also $95, is cut from Senegalese fabric. The Ankara Ottoman, $449, wraps a generous square seat in hand-dyed Adire pattern. Most ambitious of all are the custom Adire slipcovers, from $439, for which the studio measures a sofa in person or coaches a client through it by video. Each takes four to six weeks to make.
It is slow work, and that is entirely the point. A room dressed in BODDO carries not a trend but a technique, wax and water and indigo, that long predates the room itself.
