TRENDING - TIE AND DYE!

Tie and dye is a technique where colour or dye is applied through various methods but are also resisted or stopped from entering special parts of the material or fabric. For example a rubber band or a thread is tied around a fabric tightly that nothing enters it; then after immersing the fabric in the dye bath the colour does not penetrates or stamps over the area which results in designs and unique patterns.

- Ragini Gupta

Intern at TVC P.G Student, Department of Textile Science and Apparel Design SNDT Women’s University

What is Tie and dye?

Before we jump into tie and dyeing, let us take a look at some basic concepts. Everything we see has hues, tints, tones and shades. Wondering what did you just read?

It is all the dimensions of colour and we use colours to make things unique, decorative and long lasting. Tie and dye is one of the uniquely beautiful techniques we employ to decorate fabric with long lasting effects and unique colours.

Hues are the names of the colours we see like blue, red, green, and yellow and so on. Tints are the colours in their lighter form. Similarly tones are the colours in greyish forms and shades are the colours in their darker form. For example, Pink is a tint of red in its lighter form and brown is a mixture of orange red and yellow in darker form. So now as we know what colours are and what they do let’s learn about what are dyes and what is tie and dye. Dyes are colours in the form or pigments and chemicals that are used to improve or brighten or darken the colour of the fabric.

It could be colored in one or many colours. As we can see in an Indian sari the border is of one colour, the embroidery is of another, petticoats is of different colour and even the blouse has its own uniqueness. We see the different colours and the colours look different on different types of materials. With the similar example, blouse is adorned with brocade which uses golden metallic coloured thread or yarns and the petticoat is mainly cotton or linen based which is matched with the colour of the saree itself. And the Sari includes pallu with embroidery with coloured or dyed threads and the use of lace and beads.