It must be Spring but I am in a poetic mood those days. Impression is a bit of a word play here. In French (my mother tongue) it means print but it also means the same as in English when it comes to the realm of feelings…
I picked this word because it allows me to talk about our techniques to create some print effect on the dress: Shibori. It’s pretty fashionable at the moment as it was in my younger years though we called it “tie and dye”. It creates an impression of movement and volume on the fabric which brings the garment to life. Betty also experimented with ink on tissues to create colourful prints. Her technique was very similar to shibori.
I also wanted to talk about the impression a dress is suppose to make. To be stunning, it must be perfect. It also must be unique. And when it comes to natural dyes and shibori, there is one thing you can be sure of: it is going to be unique. When we were experimenting on the onion skins dye, one of our swatches ended up in a beautiful effect because the pigment was not evenly spread in the fibre. There is a uniqueness and beauty in the accident that is to look for.
I will quote the Japanese ceramic as example. Every damage resulting from an incident during the baking would be treated as an adornment and every repair would be enhanced with, say, gold. It shows the persona of the piece, its history. We live in a world where the culture tends to become global. We should borrow from the Japanese culture and infuse a little bit of animism in our material world.
itwillbethedress 