#permacouture

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Sasha Duerr uses just about anything to dye clothing: from kitchen waste (coffee grounds, avocado pits, and onion skins) to invasive "weeds" (wild fennel, oxalis) to the leaves, fruit, or petals of nearly any tree or plant (maple, pear, cherry, fig, acorn, fern, dahlia, poppy, lavender, etc).

Inspired by permaculture, Duerr believes in a slower approach to textile dying- she founded the "Permacouture" Institute to help advance Slow Textiles- both as a way to respect the environment, but also because she believes that plant-based color is more beautiful and truly alive.

"Natural dyes harmonize with each other in a way that only botanical colors can,” she writes in her book The Handbook of Natural Plant Dyes(*). “A natural dye, a red for example, will include hints of blue and yellow, whereas a chemically produced red dye contains only a single red pigment, making the color less complex... The unique qualities of naturally dyed textiles can often make the color vibrate or glow, which is truly magical."

The colors produced by plants may be magical, but the process to create them- believes Duerr- is really quite simple. To prove just how accessible the organic botanical color really is, she helped create the Fiber and Dye Walk at the California College of Arts and Crafts (where she teaches). In a simple walk through the campus, there are over 30 plants and trees that can be used as dyes, including, apple, aloe, bamboo, cherry, eucalyptus, fig, ivy, olive, juniper, lily, rosemary, and wisteria.

This isn’t new information, as Duerr points out, during World War Two our grandparents were using things like red cabbage as a dye, but quickly the knowledge is becoming lost. When Duerr began to educate herself in organic botanical color sources, she turned to farmers and indigenous communities in an attempt to catalog what was once more common knowledge.

Duerr doesn’t want to teach the world to create color from our surroundings- in a sense Slow Color- simply so we’ll all become better stewards of nature and our shared culture, it’s also for us as human beings. “Much of what has become problematic in our modern lives,” she believes, “is related to our having forgotten how to connect with simple rhythms of nature”.

In this video, Duerr takes us for a tour of all the dye plants in the garden of a home she happens to be housesitting; she brews up a few batches of natural color from the leaves of a fern and fig and loquat trees; she gives us a tour of her natural-dyed wardrobe (including pieces from her bioregional knitwear collection Adie + George, created and run with partner Casey Larkin); and finally, she dyes a secondhand silk shirt for that evening’s event using the loquat leaves from the tree outside the house.

* Her book’s complete title is The Handbook of Natural Plant Dyes: Personalize Your Craft with Organic Colors from Acorns, Blackberries, Coffee, and Other Everyday Ingredients.

Original story here: http://faircompanies.com/videos/view/...

Adie+George: http://adieandgeorge.tumblr.com/

Sasha's book: http://www.timberpress.com/books/hand...

Originally posted on YouTube on February 13th 2012

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Summer Natural Dye DIY at Anthropologie

Natural dye DIY at Anthropologie in collaboration with their 2012 Summer Window Displays.

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The NYT article "Colors of the Caldron: A New Generation Discovers Grow-It-Yourself Dyes" presents the work of this institute.

Check out their projects!

They are an inspiration to us all!

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Permacouture Workshop at University of North Texas!

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Craft Lab Journal!

Fall 2011 Craft Lab was a cross-pollination of textile, fashion, and environmental systems thinking, inspired by ecological principles found in permaculture and regenerative design applied to restoration, repair, and its inherent connection to ”craft.”

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Flora Fashion-Permacouture + UC Botanical Garden 2011 Green Gala

CELEBRATE BIODIVERSITY! A FASHION COLLECTION INSPIRED BY THE GARDEN COLLECTION Regenerative design nurtures awareness, accountability and responsibility in our approach to clothing through the use of plant-based dyes and fibers, and reclaimed textiles. The 2011 UC Botanical Garden at Berkeley,  Green Gala Fashion Show, curated by Permacouture Institute, features talented designers with sustainable methods who are designing unique pieces inspired from the Garden's global plant collection. It's innovative-gorgeous-fashion-for and from plants!" With public support the UC Botanical Garden at Berkeley preserves and maintains one of the world's most diverse living plant collections including over 2,200 rare and endangered plants from around the world. The Garden serves as an outdoor laboratory for thousands of students, helping them to appreciate the essential role that plants have to all life on Earth: from the air we breathe....to the food we eat...and the clothes we wear.

   Botanical Beauties...Styled with Plants of the Garden by Hair and Make-up Force of Nature Shawn Burke

                                                                 Adie+George's Equisetum Inspiration

                        Cory Brown and Cassidy Wright of The Moon's Slow Fashioned Florals         

Fern Dye Sans-Mordant

California Native Dye with Coast Live Oak

Scouring-rush Rainbow

                            Angelina DeAntonis of Ocelot's California Madrone Inspiration

                                                                                       Stars+Ravens-Green Gala Designer 2011 Sarah Borruso's Oak Gall Ink for Plant-painted Paper Birch Inspired Fabric...

For more flora fashion images and more on both the UC Botanical Garden and the Green Gala 2011 Designers...visit Permacouture Institute's Green Gala 2011 Blog!

                                                                                                          -Sasha

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Flora Fashion- FERNS

Ferns first appeared on the fossil record 360 million years ago!