Wear Mastery Strategies: Dyeing Clothes

In the process of cleaning out my closet I have found pieces of clothing, which were too pale, like the wrong skin color beige or too bright white on me. If everything else worked (the style, material, size) I dyed them darker into some of my colors. It was a satisfying alchemical experience and felt like baking my own bread.  The colors, especially navy and burgundy shades extended the use of the pieces of clothing. I did consider the chemicals in the dye and the pollution involved and reasoned that I would only use dyes sparingly. My girlfriend dyed a velvet silk scarf for me attempting navy and it ended up to be the color of my eyes. What a precious gift.

Throughout history some ingredients used by artists to paint or dye clothes were more valuable than gold. Victoria Finlay wrote Color. A Natural History of the Palette, in which we can read about the sources and stories of the beautiful colors used to enrich our world.