Story

Regenerating print and dye at CSM

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One of the first sample dips on white cotton.

Written by
Cat Cooper Published date
01 March 2024

The Fashion and Textiles workshops at Central Saint Martins house a growing library of plant-based dye and print options, with a natural Indigo dye that is not only non-toxic, it’s safe enough to drink.

Florence wearing a blue indigo dyed shirt and standing next to a wall chart with squares of colour — **Florence showing natural dye results**

Since coming to Central Saint Martins over three years ago, Specialist Print and Dye Technician Florence Hawkins has been developing sustainable and organic dye and print colour systems at CSM for students across Fashion and Textiles.

Reducing our reliance on chemical-based synthetics, an increasing number of students using the Print and Dye workshops now work with natural dyes.

Florence stocks a larder of plant and natural matter including roots, barks, flowers and extracts and is interested in expanding the range of colours in her library of natural dye samples. Madder Roots and Weld are grown on the roof of the College – plants that have been used in traditional dyeing processes over millennia. In the wallchart of swatches, we can see a range of natural dyes colours further transformed by using different pH applied to four fabrics: wool, linen, cotton and silk.

Students and staff have recently been dyeing ribbons using plants and biowaste and knotting naturally dyed fabric pieces for hanging in the workshop, promoting the colour possibilities of these plant and botanical dyes.

The idea is to try to record most of the natural dye colour we can get. It can be from biowaste as well as more traditional heritage dye plants; there are many plant materials yielding colour and so many possibilities of dye combinations.

— Florence Hawkins, Specialist Print and Dye Technician

A vibrant yellow plant in an aluminium bowl — **Getting ready to turn plants to dye. Photo: Annie Fisher, BA Textile Design.**

Brewing natural Indigo

Florence and colleagues, Associate Lecturers Rebecca Hoyes and Jackie Andrews set out to introduce traditional Indigo dyeing techniques last year, supported by the Central Saint Martins Creativity in Action Fund.

“It corresponded with what we wanted to do here, which was to have something really safe.” Jackie Andrews, Associate Lecturer, Fashion

“Also it comes from student demand, increasingly they are asking for sustainable approaches to material and colour.” Rebecca Hoyes, Associate Lecturer, BA Textile Design and Founder, Colour Matter

Training with an Indigo master, they built a vat in the workshop to ferment Indigo to an ancient recipe and keep it at a controlled temperature using an aquarium heater. Six months later with daily care and the right conditions, the live Indigo is in regular use. Depending on the number of dips and fabric type, it can produce colour from pale blue to deepest navy, without the toxic effects or corrosive properties of the hydros vat used to chemically dye Indigo.

Every morning Florence checks the vat, measuring the temperature, which needs to be between 28 and 34 degrees, and the pH which should be an alkaline reading of between 11.60 and 12. If it’s too low it won’t dye and this gives an indication that she needs to feed the vat with lime and/or date syrup. Once added, the vat needs to be stirred for 5 minutes, a vortex is formed to produce a flower, then it needs to rest to get the fermentation going.

Florence explains why Indigo matters so much in building out a library of natural dye results:

Blue is difficult to extract from common dye plants; it is only possible to get a range of blue from indigo. The Indigo requires a specific process. The blue is especially important to achieve a wider range of natural dye colours. The blue from indigo gives a base as it can be overdyed to create more colours. You can overdye with weld for instance to produce a range of greens, or with madder to get beautiful greys, or with logwood for deep purple and black even. The indigo is extraordinary in its capacity to dye all natural fibres in subtle to dark shades of blue; it is also surprising that it can even bring some blue to synthetic fibres too!’

— Florence Hawkins

A grey barrel with deep blue Indigo inside. — **The Indigo vat, photo: Fleur Wilson.**

SONWERÊLD: Gracey Owusu-Agyemang, MA Fashion

With an all-natural final collection, SONWERÊLD, MA Fashion student Gracey Owusu-Agyemang was awarded the Canada Goose HumanNature Award for responsible design at the 2024 Central Saint Martins MA Fashion Show, part of London Fashion Week.

Producing six looks informed by Afrofuturism and materialised through the lens of agriculture, Gracey has been learning a lot with Florence in the workshops. She was the first student to test out the Indigo vat dye on a garment - and it was the process she used for her second runway look, shown below.

A model with a straw coloured hat on afro hair, wearing a long flowing pale blue denim dress on the catwalk — **From the SONWERÊLD collection by Gracey Owusu-Agyemang, MA Fashion, Central Saint Martins 2024. Canada Goose HUMANNATURE Award for responsible design winner 2024. Photo: Catwalking.com**

For the Sonwêreld collection I used only natural fibres and natural botanical dyes. The fabrics I used were pure hemp, hemp denim, organic cotton, regenerative, were all sustainably & ethically sourced with 100% Traceability. For dyes I used natural indigo (w/ alum mordant), Red onions (w/ iron water) & cutch (w/ iron water) on pure hemp and hemp/cotton blends materials.”

— Gracey Owusu-Agyemang, MA Fashion

Annie Fisher, BA Textile Design (Weave)

BA (Hons) Textile Design student Annie is in her final year. She is also creating her final collection using entirely non-synthetic options and has been spending time with Florence and the team in the Print and Dye workshops.

I’ve loved exploring plant based colour during my time at CSM, it’s been a privilege to work with Florence and learn about the endless possibilities of natural dyes. My final woven collection will be a celebration of natural colour, my palette derived exclusively from plant based dyes. It will be an exploration of seasonality, paying homage to the intricate and beautiful intersections between nature’s cycles and the vast spectrum of colours it unveils.

— Annie Fisher, BA Textile Design (Weave)

Annie Fisher, BA Textile Design
Results of working with plant dyes, Annie Fisher, BA Textile Design
Samples, Annie Fisher, BA Textile Design
Naturally dyed fabrics, Annie Fisher, BA Textile Design

It's exciting and inspiring to see more students using natural dyes for their final collections. By considering the fibre and dyes they use, moving away from petrol-based fibres and synthetic dyes that have catastrophic impact on our planet, they give a positive message: that it is possible to produce beautiful textile pieces in harmony with our planet.

— Florence Hawkins