I have an immense passion for color and patterns of traditional textiles that originate from around the world, for me Bali is heaven. Indonesia is known for their Ikat and Batik textiles which happen to be some of my favorite, so without a doubt I wanted to incorporate these traditional textiles into our Spring/Summer 14' line. I decided to go with Batik because I felt we could have a lot of fun exploring and playing with designs and colors. So, we took our blank canvas (white organic cotton, which all our clothing will be made out of) and went to creativity city!
I will break down the process simply, but it really is something you have to see or do yourself to get the full understanding and appreciation for this technique. Batik is a wax resistent form of dying that takes 7-10 days to complete. First you choose your stamp pattern, we chose 1-2 traditional and then some other fun ones that we felt fit our image/story best, then you choose your colors for the motif and background. The first dying process is for the stamp, they dye the material, let it dry in the sun, then they lay the fabric out and dip the stamp in hot melted wax and stamp the whole material. Keep in mind the stamps are about 10' x 10' and usually hand carved metal squares and they do about 8 meters of fabric at a time, so its a lengthy and tedious process that is very hands on. Then they let the wax dry, dip it into a bath of solution to take out the first dye but the dye under the wax (the pattern) remains. Then, the background is dyed, left in the sun to dry( the sun gives the dye a unique "salted" effect) and after it is dried, the fabric is dipped into boiling hot water to remove the wax, which reveals the first dye job, then they rinse it all out and hang it out to dry again. Viola, then you have Batik! Too see more or get a better understanding please watch this videoThanks for reading,
Kenya