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Fashion Highlights
ORGANIC & NATURAL DYED CLOTHING
India – of all the textile crafts, it is for the art of dyeing that the Indian people have been world famous for many centuries and especially for their processing of natural dye stuffs and application of fast dyes with which to decorate cloth.
The dyers of the subcontinent have been creating fast colours for textile decoration for a very long time at least since the second miliennium BC. The secrets were not discovered by the west until the 17th century and thus it was that for over 3000 years the natives of Europe had to be content for the most part with dun-coloured woolen cloth, textiles of animal hair, furs & flax which when decorated would be no more than painted of daubed with fugitive colours of vegetable, animal & mineral origin.
Primary evidence for the very early mordanting of cotton cloth for decoration is provided by the printed textiles fragments found at the Mohenjodaro ex cavations. The cotton plant is endemic to this area of the Indus Valley which is thought to be one of the first regions to develop techniques for processing the fruit of the perennial wild cotton plant “Gossypium arboreum” from the boll of vegetable fibers to yarn ready to weave. Although such useful fibrous material was available un abundance it was less adaptable than animal fibers such as sheep’s wool, silk, horse, goat and camel hair fir it will not accept natural dyes for permanent colouring from early on therefore it was necessary to final ways to develop and improve on dyestuffs which could be made to coat insolubly, or bind onto, the surface of the cotton fibers.
The secret of the fast colouring of vegetable fibers lay in sensitive and intelligent use of metal oxides as an intermediary substance, such a substance is known as “MORDANT” which means to bite. The Mordant bites the fibers in combination with the dyestuff to fix the colour. There are over 300 dye-yielding plants endemic to the Indian sub-continent, which after careful preparation can be used with various types densities and qualities of mordants.
The dyers of India are ensured pride of place in the world history of textile arts. Until the late 19th century they worked exclusively with natural dyes. An aura of reverence and respect for the properties of these dyes permeated their lives and even after the discovery of the chief chemical dyes by the western producers the Indian dyers claimed that their indigenous and natural occurring dye substance not only casted longer but strengthened, rather than harmed or weakened. Yet the introduction of these new chemical dyes in the 1890’s dealt a body-blow to the traditional practices of the dyers and the final death knell to much of farming of dye crops, it was said that it also injured the artistic feelings of the people and demoralized the indigenous crafts.
Chemical dyes are a marketing dream as can be used in all types of yarn are relatively easy to handle and transport and above all the cheap. Colour ranges may be selected from a chart and mixed, if desired and neither supply nor price is subject to the vagaries of the monsoon climate, which so bedevils the lives of the Indian farmers.
Chemical dyes therefore are the primary source of colour for the textile industry of India in the 20th century hampered at first by an inadequate understanding of the early aniline chemical dyes and their users, bewildered by the and of bitingly bright colours available the dyers of India laid themselves open to charges of declining aesthetic standards certainly the families and corporations involved in semi merchandized and the more recent automated mass production of cloth have adopted chemical dyes to achieve on efficient and profitable output at the expense of the traditional aesthetic qualities of natural colours.
To fight the chemical dye war and to retain the old traditional natural dyeing art we have taken a step to retain & promote it in the whole world before this art dies out for out future generations to come.
We Fashion Highlights through having a modern name have opened workshops in villages and by the support of senior craft workers are putting all our efforts to re-generate and keep alive and respect for the traditions of the past. The recent development and expert use of high quality and fine colour chrome dyes has contributed in part to the renaissance of interest in the textiles of India for the fashion markets all over the world. But still exist pockets of production that have always retained traditional methods though specific local demand, a lack of choice, an abundance of dyestuff or a dearth of finance.
We would like now to explain you what are natural dyes.
Natural dyes are either substantive of adjective Substantive dyes need no mordant to fix the colour to the cloth fiber and sources include certain lichens, the bark and heartwood of trees ad most important, the indigo shrub ( indigofera tinctoria). This indigo bush is found throughout India and historically of great commercial value as this indigo species yield more than thirty times the quality of the blue dye agent indican than the plants endemic to the west. The dye is processed by way of an exacting technique which leaves little margin of error, indigo plant is mixed with an alkaline solution to create an “ indigo white”. The cloth is then dipped in such solution and colours blue as the white indigo oxidizes on contract with the atmosphere. A repeated dipping in to the vat and exposing to the air darkens the blue colour. Although fast, the indican merely coats the surface of the fibers of the cloth if therefore tends to rub off and is prone to bleaching when washed.
Adjective dyes require a mordant for any degree of permanency. Mordants include the metallic salts of alum, chrome, iron & tin as well as salt, vinegar, caustic soda, slaked time, urine (for ammonia) and the compounds or solutions of certain leaves, fruits & wood ash.
The Indian dyers are famous for their skillful use of alum & iron metallic salts that capture the elusive colours of red & black.
Red is achieved by combining a source material of the colouring substance alizarin with alum, the results ranging from pink to deep red. By mixing an acidic solution of iron often a rusty scrap with tannies or jaggery, black is created.
Such iron mordants have the unfortunate quality of biting rather too hard on natural fibres thereby rotting the black of a wove or embroidered pattern.
Red dyeing with a mordant is complex. It is a wonder that the many chemical interactions required would have been developed at all and that the secrets of the trade then not divulged to European interlopers until the 17th century. A crucial step in the mordanting procedure is the treatment of the cloth with an oily or fatty substance and afterwards with an a stringent such as lime. This prevents the subsequent addition of the mordant, alum from drying on the cloth and crystallizing. The red colouring agent alizarin may then be added. The alizarin lies within the dried root of the maddar plant “Rubia Tinetoria” which was cultivated on an extensive scale throughout India and the shruh dug up when 3-4 years old. The colouring matter is found in the young root bark and mature tree roots are discarded as worthless. After ehipping the roots the free acids are removed by washing in water. A bright and almost luminous quality of red was extracted from the root of chay “Olden Landia Umbellata” as the root of the growing plant absorbed the calcium which after processing save the best Red.
The very well known contiment turmeric from the perennial herb “Curcuma Longa” has had its uses over the centuries as a fugitive yellow dye source. The rhizomes of the plant contain curcumin, a sharp yellow colouring agent readily dissolved in water. But this is not a colourfast dye and is used in combination with other more subtle dyes as a bright colour wash and as to topcoat of dye to create secondary colours such as green. To attain a yellow colour with better colour fastness is achieved by mixing a boiled solution of the flowers of myrobalan tree “Compretaceae” family, with mango tree bark and on alum solution to form a mordant. A semi-fast green colour is commonly obtained by coating, indigo and myrobalan. The fruit of myrobalan is a source of tannies.
Resist Dying
The resisting screening or covering of the cloth with the removable yet impermeable substance is a common method of textile decoration.
The placement of the dyestuffs in the resist techniques can be controlled in various ways, but there are two main methods of regulating the patterning.
Firstly there is the tie & dye technique in which cloth is screened or partly screened by being tied with impermeable threads.
The second creates patters either by painting or printing by blocks with a substance that will react with the dye to fix the colour (mordant resist dyeings) or by applying an impermeable and removable substance such as mud or gum or was that will successfully resist the colour when the cloth is dipped into the dye bath, yet may be removed by dissolving, washing or heating.
Different type of designs prints etc are possible in this process.
We are putting hard efforts by opening workshops to keep alive the old traditional art of natural dyeing generated by our forefather is for our future generations to come.
Sunil Vaid
FASHION HIGHLIGHTS
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OKHLA INDUSTRIAL AREA PHASE-1
NEW DELHI-110020 (INDIA)
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