community of dyers

I've just come across an interesting article on tie-dyeing in a 1906 issue of The Craftsman. Excellent photographs and a good description of the dyes used both here and in India, which apparently is the source of the textiles the writer acquired in a US shop.

Thank you for posting that referral. I may use some of that info for my adult tie dye class. It was interesting looking at the intricate knots before and after effects.
De Williams Creativity can transcend violence and fear. If we are to have peace in the world, we must begin with the children.

I guess I didn't word my query very well. This is not for a "school paper", but is connected to research regarding pre-Diaspora West African textiles, and I'm pretty well-versed by now in early antecedents.

I was hoping for American pop-culture (rather than serious- or specialty-book), references to the craft *in the US* during the 1960s which might indicate whether the trend was inspired by the Indian or African imports then flooding the market, or whether it was just one more craft taken up during the period. Unfortunately I have found no such references - hence my query.

Since I posted, I've located African textile history sources that note that this "budget" fabric first became fashionable in West Africa during the pan-Africanist movement of the mid-1960s, when African expatriates and African-American men began using the fabric for shirts. This was contemporaneous with the use both there and here of kente and the Dutch-wax fabric tunics known as "dashiki".

So it seems that the earliest antecedents here in the US were probably adire oniko. That's also suggested by what appears to be the most ubiquitous tie-dye form here: the bullseye pattern referred to in West Africa as "Tom, Dick and Harry".

That said, there are pre-WWII examples of TD&H tie-dyed wholecloth quilts in North Carolina. At least one of the makers is white; however, Yoruba were signifiantly represented among the enslaved Africans brought there in the 18th and 19th centuries, so it may be a holdover.

In a stack of textile-related publications I just bought, I found a 1937 promotional publication from Diamond Dye of Burlington, VT ("taken by the Byrd Antarctic Expedition...for use in signal flags and tent tops" - they couldn't dye the stuff before they left home??). Gorgeous full-color 32-page art deco booklet calleld "Modern Color Magic in Dress and Home Decoration".

Anyhow, there on page 28 is "The Fascinating Art of Tie-Dyeing". Described as an "ancient art" which will "often supply the color accent needed in home or wardrobe." They recommend it for cheesecloth or voile curtains, as well as silks and chiffons.

Three methods are pictured: knotting from the center (resulting in a bullseye effect), twist (sort of scrunched) and tied with string.

So I guess tie-dye was indeed being promoted commercially around the time my North Carolina quilts were made. Clears up that mystery!

In our country was probably big influence from far east - folk costumes had parts decorated with sewn shibori stripes and it was dyed blue (probably by imported indigo)

For some reason in our country, as well as in Germany (maybe also in further European countries) people used to say "batik" to whatever reservation technique... Here recently I've noticed that people (even authors of craft books) use it even to whatever decoration on textile. *sigh*

Here's an interesting little piece in the LA Times (published April 6, 2008) that claims that Rit Dye was heavily promoting tie-dye in 1965, the same year that the Grateful Dead was founded (in December 1965)....

LOOKBACK
Tie-dye's psychedelic history
Free-spirited '60s artists and a dye company exec brought a new twist to colored fabric.
By Erin Weinger, Times Staff Writer
April 6, 2008
IN 1965, Rit Dye nearly died. Used primarily to dye curtains and other home accessories at the time, the product wasn't selling, and the factory was about to close. Don Price, a Best Foods executive hired to market Hellman's mayonnaise, persuaded his bosses -- who also owned Rit -- to let him have a shot at saving the failing brand. The agreement came with a catch. He had to do it with virtually no budget.

After researching uses for dye around the world, Price began a gonzo marketing campaign in New York's Greenwich Village. He hoped to generate interest among the neighborhood's free-spirited youths, who were fast becoming fascinated with psychedelic colors and artsy-craftsy garb. He knocked on doors looking for artists who would be willing to use Rit for tie-dyeing, a technique used in Asia and Africa to decorate clothes.

He found the married team of Will and Eileen Richardson, out-of-work window decorators, and brought them bolts of velvet and chiffon. Their tie-dyed fabrics were so impressive that Price used them as samples to peddle to designers and fashion editors. Most weren't interested, but Halston was. He placed a $5,000 order and used the fabric to make clothes for Ali MacGraw and other celebs.

By 1969, Janis Joplin, Mama Cass and Joe Cocker were wearing tie-dye at Woodstock, and Marisa Berenson was wearing Halston's tie-dyed velvet caftan in Vogue.

The Richardsons won a Coty Award six months later. And Deadhead couture was born.

It's possible that the Rit Dye promotion is the link between the 1920s and 30s pamphlets on tie-dyeing curtains and 1960s fashion. It's at least as possible that it was older individuals, not affiliated with any dye company, who passed the methods on, just as with macramé, basket-weaving, and other handicrafts that became popular in the 1960s.

-Paula

A more contemporaneous article on tie-dye in the 1960s and 70s, in Time Magazine on January 26, 1970....

The Psychedelic Tie-Dye Look
Monday, Jan. 26, 1970
THE art is almost as old as India —where it is called bandhnu. It is as new as the boutiques that blossom along Sunset Strip and Madison Avenue —where it is called tie-dyeing. Knotting cloth and dipping it in dye to produce patterns of colorful blobs, swirls and splotches has suddenly become a bright new fad of both high fashion and low.

The latest version of the fad started among the flower children of California, for whom its appeal is easy to understand. For one thing, it is pure psychedelia. For another, each tie-dyed pattern is unique, an unautomated adventure in personal adornment. And tie-dyeing is cheap. For little added cost, it can turn a 32¢ T shirt into strawberry fields forever, or an old pair of jeans into a tiptoe through the tulips.

The Water Babies. The old new fashion spread rapidly through the rock world; many of its stars now sleep in tie-dyed sheets (Janis Joplin has a set in satin). Pop Singer John Sebastian habitually turns himself out in tie-dye from chin to tennis shoes; he does it all himself, and his stove is usually covered with bubbling dye pots.

Sebastian learned the craft from one of its best-known practitioners on the West Coast, "Tie-Dye Annie." Dark-haired Ann Thomas, born 33 years ago in New York City, was a copywriter for Capitol Records and worked for an ad agency in Hawaii before dropping out in Haight-Ashbury in 1967. There, at the Free Store, she learned to tie-dye castaway clothes. "It was the only way we had to give them our own individual stamp of identity," she explains, "as well as making them beautiful."

Today Annie has graduated to a ramshackle semicommune in the Hollywood Hills, surrounded by the vats, bottles and colors of her Water Baby Dye Works. Most of the works is out of doors —which is almost necessary, because Annie uses lye and sodium hydrosulfite, resulting in fumes that make it necessary for her to cover her hair, wear rubber gloves and an apron, and douse herself thoroughly in vinegar at the end of a dyeing day.

Annie and her partner, an English-born professional designer named Maureen Mubeem, could easily be swamped by commissions from the boutiques of Los Angeles, San Francisco and points between. But the girls avoid commercialization and limit themselves to work for friends at a flat $7.50 per item. A list of their customers reads like Who's Who in Rock; it includes the Rolling Stones, the cast of The Committee, Cass Elliott and Hair Producer Michael Butler (whose dining room is now being done over completely in Water Baby tie-dye).

Because of the shortage of fine workmanship, Hollywood is hard put to keep up with the tie-dye boom—which has spread to everything from long-John underwear at $10 a set to wall hangings at $500. After Annie, the West Coast tie-dyer most in demand is Artist Bert Bliss, who has been at it for more than 20 years. Bliss, who works with rayon chiffons, cottons and velvets, does his dyeing in the kitchen, like any housewife. And instead of Annie's concoctions of lye and anilines, he uses a home dyeing product called Rit, right from the supermarket shelf.

Dazzling Variations. So does the Manhattan husband-and-wife team of Will and Eileen Richardson, whose brand-new firm, Up Tied, is considered the best tie-dyer in the city. Up Tied was conceived only last February when Artist Richardson, commissioned to do a display for Rit, rashly announced that he could make better tie-dye samples than the Rit people had supplied him with. They gave him four days to try. The Richardsons set to work frantically to learn—and found tie-dyeing to be both a simple and remarkably creative art.

First step is putting the material together and tying it tightly in variations of five basic shapes, known as rosettes, bunches, gathers, pleats and marblings. String or dental floss can be used to tie it, but elastic is best, as it is not permeated by the dye and can be easily snipped free. The fabric is then immersed in the simmering (not boiling) dye solution and kept there for a length of time that varies with the material; cotton, for instance, soaks up the dye slowly, while silk takes it quickly. Next, the fabric is rinsed in cold water. The process can be repeated as many as five times, using a different color for each dyeing. Shadings of color can be achieved by boiling in a color remover or stretching the fabric on the floor and rubbing on chlorine bleach (which has to be removed in a washing machine). Dazzling variations can be created by twisting the elastic around the bunched material and using a medicine dropper or squeeze bottle to drop the dye into folds and crevices of the cloth.

Limp and Sensuous. When the Richardsons saw how delighted the Rit people were with their four-day efforts, they decided to peddle their designs on their own. One interior decorator who saw the contents of Will Richardson's sample case suggested that Will drop downstairs and see Halston, the brilliant young milliner and fashion designer. Two hours later, Richardson walked out with a $5,000 order. Halston has designed much of his new collection in Up Tied tie-dyes—even including a group of tie-dyed slouch hats. He loves the medium's "limp, sensuous quality," he says. "The beauty of it is that no two pieces are alike and anybody can wear it—young and not so young."

Halston's tie-dyed young and not so young include Actress Ali MacGraw, Best-Dresser Babe Paley, Vogue Editor Robin Butler and Model Naomi Sims. Film Star Liza Minnelli has commissioned Halston to dress her in tie-dye for her Waldorf opening next month.

Burlington Industries, sensing a developing market, has included four different tie-dye designs in its fabrics this year, and is mass-producing them. Tie-dye prints are showing up in the fabric centers and even in the hosiery salons of large department stores. Whether they come off the kitchen stove, a rack in a chic boutique or an industrial loom, the bright surprises and flowery amoebae of tie-dyed clothes, cushions and wall coverings will be part of the pattern for 1970.

Here's a link to a PDF showing a June 1970 article in Rags, "a counterculture fashion magazine ahead of its time":
        Maureen Mubeem: Peach Is Beautiful[PDF]
A few quotes....

After Woodstock, tie-dyed clothes were really in. Well, maybe they were in long before that, but all I know is that the first time I consciously noticed tie-dye was when John Sebastian took the stage at that Festival....
[....]
"So your tie-dyeing is simply another extension of your whole color theory?"

"Yes, that's what made me interested in it in the first place. I started our on my own clothes; I didn't want to mess with anybody else's. After I did that little blue and green dress I had on yesterday, I felt quite heartened because I had never seen anyone else do one quite like that. It was much sifter. I used one primary and its neighboring colors, something no one else had done. Most people who tie-dye use only primary colors all together. It encouraged me that it could be a much more subtle thing. I realized that in a way it was like painting, except that your canvas is a moving body with material on it.

There's a discussion of singers for whom she did tie-dyeing, specifically the Rolling Stones, as well as others for whom she'd have liked to do tie dyeing, and what colors she'd choose.

Then she describes how she did it. She was using vat dyes, back before Procion dyes became available to tie-dyers:

OK now. Suppose you were just starting out in tie-dye. What would you need?

I would need pots from one cup size to about a quart. And a larger pot, like a soup pot, and a wash basin, nothing bigger.

Nothing more sophisticated?

No, that's all. Plus rubber gloves because the solutions are often dangerous. You use very strong chemicals, caustic soda and hydrosulphide.

Are those the colors, or do you add those to the colors?

That's what you add to make it all happen. Caustic soda breaks open the pores of the fabric, breaks down any dye-resistant film that is on them. Then the color can go in, an aniline base color. Then you put in the hydrosulphide which closes it, firms it, you know, and then you hang it in the air; that "develops" it, oxidizes it, or what have you. Or no, it's the hydrosulphide that develops it, I guess.

I mix my color, put the first chemical, caustic soda, in and put the fabric in and leave it for ten or fifteen minutes, depending on the depth of the shade I want.

The longer it's in, the deeper the final color?

Yes. Next you put the hydrosulphide in, which stops it from taking, stops it at that shade and also turns the color to its opposite. When you undo the knots it's like magic. You have the color, its opposite and the tones in between. When the air gets to it, it gos back to the original color you mixed.

What kind of dyes do you use?

Aniline vat dyes.

What quantities do you buy it in?

Fifteen pounds at a time, primary colors only. My dye bill comes to about sixty dollars for fifteen pounds. The other chemicals I get from a chemical supply house, about five pounds each. They each cost about nine dollars total.

You should also have some kind of rubber cap, like a shower cap or something, though I just put a scarf over my head. The fumes dry my hair and make it brittle. The chemicals seem to react with the oils in your hair and reduce the oil content. You can feel it happening. Another thing I noticed is that after I have used the dyes I get a very heavy chest congestion. Ideally, you should use some kind of mask with these commercial dyes. If you use Rit, though, there are no fumes, but it doesn't hold up as well as the aniline dyes. Two or three washes and it's gone. Aniline lasts about twenty washes before it starts looking real faded.

The interview includes specifics on how to design and dye one example of a t-shirt.

-Paula