SHIBORI TIE-DYE

Our studio was again turned into a laboratory to experiment and  in pursuit of it’s own unique style of hand dying. To be more precise, we were inspired by an ancient Japanese dyeing technique, known as Shibori, to create unique pieces for our collection. After trying this technique, we wanted to share with you how we used it!

WHAT IS SHIBORI ?

Before getting into more details, we wanted to introduce you to this technique. Shibori comes from Japan and shiboru means "wring" or "squeeze" in Japanese. Japanese use this “tie-dye” technique since the eighth century.

 There are 6 traditional techniques in the art of Shibori. We choose for our project to use the technique of Itajime Shibori and Kanoko Shibori.

Itajime Shibori

Itajime Shibori is the dying process of using wood or in our case plexi glass to create negative space in the dye.  By using the pressure of the wood or plexi glass one achives that the dye is only visible in the outer edge of the folds.

Kanoko Shibori

This technique is the most similar one to our western style tye dying. By gathering fabric in circular or geometric forms and tying threads around the gathered fabric one creates patterns in the fabric. The dye moves everywhere except to where the binding is very tight.  Folding can also be incorporated to this technique. We used it on the pants for example.

What we really like with this ancient Japanese technique is that we were able to create for each piece a unique dying design! Without further redo, let’s get into the technique!

HOW WE USED SHIBORI TIE-DYE TECHNIQUE

1. PREPARING THE VAT

First we used indigo pigment that we mixed with hot water to prepare our dying vat. We then added a base (hydroxide) and a reducing agent (fruit sugar) to absorb oxygen.

2. FOLDING OUR DRESS

We then prepared our wrap dress in Itajime Shibori technique using shapes when folding to resist the binding.  This is also called sandwiching the fabric by using shapes. We wanted to place the print on the outer edge of the dress. Using a cotton thread we secure our evenly placed folds.

For the first time one third of the collection was first sewn in white not dyed fabric to then be hand-dyed with ancient techniques. 

3. STARTING THE DYEING PROCESS

After these steps, we put into the vat our dress. A few times later, the color turns from yellow to green to a final blue shade.

Tips: Make sure to stir the vat constantly and check the dying process.

 4. DRY THE CLOTHES

We then removed the dress from the vat and started to dry it.

5 LAST STEP : UNFOLD THE CLOTHES

We removed the binds and unfolded the dress. Now let’s see how it turned out…

OUR SHIBORI SERIES