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Eco Colour: Botanical Dyes for Beautiful

Textiles by India Flint
Rebecca Bintrim
Published online: 21 Apr 2015.

To cite this article: Rebecca Bintrim (2008) Eco Colour: Botanical Dyes for Beautiful Textiles by India Flint,
Fashion Theory, 12:4, 547-550

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 Fashion Theory, Volume 12, Issue 4, pp. 547 – 550
DOI: 10.2752/175174108X346986
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Reviewed by
Rebecca Bintrim Book Review
Eco Colour: Botanical Dyes for Beautiful Textiles
by India Flint (Murdoch Books, 2008)

India Flint is known as the “ragbag princess” for good reason. In Eco
Colour: Botanical Dyes for Beautiful Textiles Flint shares the secrets
of the intricacies of her recycled and re-recycled eco-prints and environ-
mentally over-friendly dyeing obsession. Although her tie-dye-esque
prints are far from the ecofashion couture strutting down the runways
of Paris, Milan, and New York City, Flint offers fashion-forward alter-
natives to standard synthetic dyeing. Brimming with exquisite images of
eclectic and whimsical fabrics, Eco Colour breaks down the processes
 548 Rebecca Bintrim

of natural dyeing into eight well-organized sections, set up to look like

a scrapbook. From the chemistry and biology down to the history and
folklore, each section presents a homegrown charm cemented down by
thorough investigation and knowledge, as well as providing engaging
experiments for the novice dyer, the professional dyer, and all those in be-
tween. While most consumers are scared off by the price tags on most
eco-friendly products, Flint provides dyers with a manageable way to
create inexpensive masterpieces with a bit of creativity and a good
amount of patience.
An Australian resident with Latvian influences, Flint combines re-
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gional botany with inherited traditions, as well as inventing a few tech-

niques of her own. In Part One she gives a basic history and background
of dyeing in different parts of the world, stressing through her own work
the importance of regionalism and using products from one’s own sur-
roundings rather than imported items. The eucalyptus, a tree native
to Australia, is featured in many of Flint’s experiments and pictured
prints. She also unearths many unusually items and locations one can
encounter dyestuff locally, from windfalls, leftovers at grocery stores
and florists, as well as one’s own backyard or garden, although she
warns against using any unidentifiable and potentially endangered
plants. Occasionally her tone becomes more demanding than sugges-
tive, “never ever collect a plant from the wild that you cannot iden-
tify,” but her environmental cautions are almost always followed by
academic explanations, “(t)he plant you are looking at may be rare or
endangered” (p. 32).
Part Two covers the basics of starting up a place to work. While
portraying the ideals for a perfect dye studio, Flint admits that not even
she always dyes under such conditions and offers practical solutions for
reusing old equipment for dyeing and storage. Old socks and used tea
bags are a few of the trash-turned-treasure amidst many.
The most vital section of the book is found in Parts Three and Four,
which contain extensive lists of nearly all the elements possibly needed
to generate particular colors, followed by details of the dyeing process
for specific fabrics and mordants. Usually she includes both the scien-
tific and the common name for plants. However most often colors here
are described vaguely as “red,” “green,” and “blue,” although this may
be understandable in the context of Flint’s methods, which are based
primarily on trial-and-error experimentation. When working with natu-
ral dyeing, slight variations in textiles, mordants, temperature, and cli-
mate can result in drastically different results, something Flint considers
a “new and beautiful surprise” (p. 78). The result of so many possible
combinations have the potential to become overwhelming, yet each
fiber, mordant, and method is distinctly labeled such that one does not
have to search the entire chapter to find a particular section. Hot and
cold extraction processing is specifically explained at the end of Part
Four. While traditional methods call for boiling to achieve color, Flint
 Book Review 549

finds that more satisfying and vibrant colors can be discovered through
methods such as ice-flower dyeing, where one can extract beautiful,
bright colors, as opposed to traditional boiling, which damages delicate
flowers and produces a sludgy brown color.
While results vary widely from the almost limitless choices of differ-
ent plants, Part Five looks at specific plants and their color results when
experimenting with different temperatures, amounts of water, and com-
binations of plants. Once again Flint resorts to her beloved eucalyptus,
which can produce from green to gold and red dyes as well as a com-
bination of multiple colors depending on the technique used to prepare
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and dye the fabric. Flint further investigates colors attained from native
plants, like the Kangaroo Paw, and others like the dark-colored iris for
purples, blues, and reds, petunias for purple and blue, and pelargoni-
ums for dark red and purples. Although native Australian plants may
not be widely available in other parts of the world, Flint’s proposal of
regionalism paired with an adamant theme of experimentation provides
her reader with the ability to achieve similar results from a different en-
vironment. Thus, while the reader may not be able to follow Flint’s exact
examples, the skills taught through Eco Colour will provide the means
to create regional dyes in an eco-friendly manner.
Part Six adds a creative twist to the basics, explaining how to achieve
unique prints and patterns rather than a standard solid color. Flint’s
signature eco-prints are detailed in this section along with some of her
own techniques such as hapa-zome, where one literally beats the color
into the fabric. Although there are no instructional diagrams, pictures
of leaf and flower prints, chic patterns, and even text printed with cow
manure accompany each technique. Urine and feces are shown more
than once as a legitimate possibility for dyeing; once again reiterating
the idea of using what is at hand. In fact, any resource available to
use is put to use, from simple solar dyeing using onion skins, to more
labor-intensive resists created using cut out tin cans and old blocks.
Other techniques include hot-bundling, layered dyeing, shibori-zome
(a Japanese method of resist dyeing), ikat dyeing from Malaysia and
Indonesia, and general information on how to make different patterns.
Flint even strays from textiles, showing Easter egg dyes that utilize
onion skins and cookie icing colored from natural dyes.
Flint’s conclusion in Part Seven provides a gallery of some final prod-
ucts. She also adds a few extra tips to help achieve better results. A color
may vary according to a region’s water quality and when dyeing, time
is of the essence; patience when dyeing allows more dye to be picked
up. She also explains how to best take care of silk vs. wool vs. cotton,
linen, ramie, and hemp. Lastly, Flint once again precautions readers to
be mindful in all aspects of dyeing by insisting upon proper methods of
waste disposal, such as making a compost pile for liquids like vinegar,
urine, and milk, and using vegetable matter as mulch. The final sec-
tion, Part Eight, further validates Flint’s already hefty knowledge, listing
 550 Rebecca Bintrim

numerous references and websites for further reading. Flint’s own web-
site www.indiaflint.com includes more of her work as well as informa-
tion about her own fashion label, Prophet of Bloom.
While Eco Colour is more of a book of practice than one of theory,
its basis in research on sustainable design will be of interest to schol-
ars engaged with the cultural significance of dyeing practices as well as
an awareness of ecological impacts. At the same time that Eco Colour
provides the reader with basic knowledge on at-home dyeing, this work
reveals that color and style can be attained without synthetic materials
and questions the need for the exotic when regional tools are readily
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available. As a result it pushes the current trends of the green era by

endorsing ecofashion at the level of the individual and through some-
times socially outrageous techniques. Dyeing becomes easily accessible
and curious such that even the least interested dyer will be intrigued to
experiment with one of the many cocktails Flint sets to brew.