community of dyers

There may be some aspects of shibori going on but there is little evidence of fabric bondage going on, string or rubber band.

The text accompanying that picture is interesting, too:

Our American Century Turbulent Years: The 60s. 1998. Edited by Sara Brash and Loretta Britten. Alexandria, Virginia: Time-Life Books, 175. (Photography Copyright 1989 Charles Harbutt/Actuality Inc., New York.)

Many may associate the tie-dye with the hippie, but it actually originated from a sub group of hippie people, known as the digger. When the simple wearing of white as an outer garment turned from the not rebellious enough against the “establishments,” these T’s were soon being dyed in “bright strident colors” and later “were tie-dyed in undulating spirals, psychedelic colors spirals and circles,” again for some, interpretations of their acid hallucinations (American Decades: 1960-1969 1995). This was one of the many results of the “oppositional sub-culture than had been germinating for some time,” eventually leading to the labeling of a movement to be known as counterculture (Brick 1998).

The free Haight Ashbury district of San Francisco people were pure examples of the possibilities and limits of this mid 60’s countercultural movement. In their “free city,” of hippie origin, they set up a free housing network, a communication system, concerts, and store (for free clothes and household goods.) and held a regular food giveaway. The diggers were the theater geeks of these hippies, those claiming to be life actors, scripting their own stories and turning every day life into a theater of endless possibilities. Like the rest of there fellows, they strived for an edginess and did so in their communitarian ethos with a “do your own thing” mentality involving usually a sense of adventure leading to the rampant use of narcotics, thievery, and romanticism of the criminal underworld. It was some of these people that formed the infamous rural communes of the late 60’s in southern California. In essence, these people seemed to be the rebels of the rebels. Whether seen as a positive or not, they did provide a huge contribution to ecological awareness (Farber 2001).

The picture shown here was one taken of a booth at a Woodstock Music and Art Fair in August 1969. Counter cultural fashion had prided itself on offering one of a kind, natural, and homemade, again all key elements of the hippie look. In further going along with hippie philosophy, only natural dyes were used. Fabrics were usually knotted together prior to create a sunburst effect. (Our American Century Turbulent Years: The 60s 1998).

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American Decades: 1960-1969. 1995. Edited by Richard Layman. New York: Gale Research International Limited.

Brick, Howard. Age of Contradiction: American Thought and Culture in the 1960s. 1998. London: Twayne Publishers.

Farber, David, and Beth Bailey. The Columbia Guide To: America in the 1960s. 2001. New York: Columbia University Press.

Our American Century Turbulent Years: The 60s. 1998. Edited by Sara Brash and Loretta Britten. Alexandria, Virginia: Time-Life Books.

From the picture, I strongly suspect they were not using natural dyes mentioned in the article. It's easy to claim to use natural dyes or vegetable dyes. The only bright natural blue dye is indigo, though, not the turquoise shown, and natural greens that do not contain indigo (plus a yellow) tend to be brownish, nothing like the leaf green color in the picture.

-Paula