Dyeing at Gainsborough
The dye house at Gainsborough has the equipment that is compatible with natural dyes. Using our ao textiles recipes in combination with the skill of Gainsborough's master dyer Geoff allows us to create a wide range of sustainable naturally dyed yarns for bespoke jacquard fabric.
Weld
Weld is a dye plant that has been used for centuries to create a variety of vivid colours from bright yellow to both light and dark greens. This colour has been chosen as part of the ao textiles palette due to its flexibility and lightfastness. We have called it Luteola meaning yellow.
Why natural dyeing?
The partnership between ao textiles and Gainsborough has established that colour sourced from sustainable botanicals, including madder, weld and chestnut, can play a part in circular 21st century textile production, making an environmentally conscious move away from the synthetic petroleum-based colours common in textile manufacture today. Used over millennia, the utilisation of plant-based sources to create colour for textiles came to an abrupt halt in the late 19th century when rapidly replaced by synthetic dyes obtained from petrochemicals. Skin is our largest organ. There is mounting evidence that ubiquitous synthetic fibres, dyes and finishes are not benign. synthetic compounds in the textile supply chain including dyes often manifest as endocrine disrupters and can be carcinogenic. Wider studies suggest that the chemical load carried in fibres we wear may be absorbed by prolonged contact with the skin.