Rajasthan and Gujarat, India

Natural Dyeing

Colour drawn from plants, roots and minerals rather than synthetic dye — slower, and never perfectly repeatable.

Indigo is fermented in vats over days before it will take to cloth, and the exact shade depends on temperature, timing and the dyer's own judgment.

Because the source materials vary season to season, no two dye lots are ever quite identical — a deliberate feature of the process, not a flaw in it.

Natural Dyeing in progress