Tag Archives: dyes

Ainery Blue creates a modern Furoshiki denim bag using traditional Japanese design

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It’s easy to take modern products for granted because of the ease of manufacturing and the ubiquity of some materials. Not everything that is new is good, however, and not everything that is old is obsolete. Newer synthetic materials eat away at our planet’s life, while the easy way of producing things doesn’t always yield long-lasting results. Sometimes, we have to take the hard-earned lessons of the past to heart in order to make something beautiful, enduring, and, more importantly, sustainable. That’s the message that Blue Ainery’s compact Furoshiki denim bag tries to send by using traditional dyeing and weaving methods to create a fashionable storage accessory whose very design pays homage to Japan’s history and tradition, many of which still apply today.

Designer: Ainery Blue

Click Here to Buy Now: $82 $94 (10% off). Hurry, only 5/10 left!

Almost everything about the Furoshiki denim bag is a nod to Japan’s past culture, design, and fashion. The term “furoshiki” itself is a reference to the traditional Japanese wrapping cloths for goods, bento boxes, and informal gifts. When worn as a bag, the Furoshiki looks more like an “Azuma Fukuro” that predated today’s modern tote bags by about four centuries. The design might look basic and even old-fashioned, but there’s also a certain charm to its minimalism. More importantly, its uncomplicated shape leaves enough room for plenty of items inside.

Ryukyu Indigo Dye – A type of natural Indigo dye that has been produced in Okinawa, Japan since ancient times. “Ryukyu” is another name for Okinawa.

The bag looks made from your typical denim material, but there is nothing typical with how it’s actually made, beginning from the way it’s dyed. It uses the Ryuku Indigo plant to create a rare natural dye using traditional and manual methods like microorganism fermentation. The warp yarns undergo a traditional soaking method to make sure that the Ryuku Indigo dye really seeps into the core of the yarn. The end result is a material that doesn’t fade quickly no matter how many times you wash it.

Uses “Kase-zome”, a Traditional Japanese Dyeing Technique – The warp yarns are soaked, then taken out and exposed to air to let the dye oxidize. This procedure is repeated during the dyeing process. By soaking the yarns over and over again, the Ryukyu Indigo dye seeps all the way deeply into the core, resulting in a unique texture.

The denim is woven using more traditional shuttle looms that yield more durable high-density fabrics compared to modern looms. That said, the fabrics are sewn by machines, but there’s still an element of quality production thanks to how it’s handled by a factory in Okayama that is also used by famous but unnamed fashion brands. Right from the start, the Furoshiki bag is made with traditional methods and materials to ensure the same long-lasting quality of traditional bags that last for decades, not just years.

Of course, the denim bag isn’t just all about the past. It also applies the lessons of modern manufacturing and design, like the use of reinforcing rivets to make the bag stronger. It is also designed with modern aesthetics in mind, like the use of denim fabric, even if the shape and form don’t conform to the modern ideas of bags. It’s a perfect example of how good design never really goes out of fashion.

The Furoshiki denim bag demonstrates how modern design thinking can apply the lessons of the past to create something that will also endure the test of time. Stylish, durable, functional, and sustainable, the bag easily stands out among modern tote bags as something that blends the past and the present in a harmonious way. Given how it’s designed not to fade easily and to match almost any fashion style, the $80 early price tag is almost perfect for a long-lasting bag to carry your stuff with you.

Click Here to Buy Now: $82 $94 (10% off). Hurry, only 5/10 left!

The post Ainery Blue creates a modern Furoshiki denim bag using traditional Japanese design first appeared on Yanko Design.

These elegant colored glass pieces are actually dyed using crushed stones

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Just like with clothing, it’s also too easy to take for granted how glass-based products can actually be harmful to the environment in the long run. While glass itself is made from sustainable resources, the dyes used to give them vibrant colors are toxic to the environment. Even worse, colored glass can’t easily be recycled because of that mixture and because it’s nearly impossible to bring the material back to its natural transparent state. To make decorative glass truly sustainable, a new method of coloring glass needs to be developed, and one designer embarked on a journey of two years and hundreds of miles to come up with a solution that matches Haute Joaillerie in elegance but surpasses it in sustainability.

Designer: Salome Maarek

Glass is beautiful and useful in so many ways. It is used in furniture as functional parts of tables and shelves, and it is used in decorative pieces that require reflective or transparent surfaces and faceted forms. It can even be used in place of precious stones, and, of course, stained glass has been in use for centuries. As beautiful as it may be, colored glass apparently has a dirty secret. They are, unfortunately, toxic to the environment both in their production and disposal.

In searching for a better way to make beautiful glass, Jerusalem-based Salome Maarek looked to natural stones for the answer. The designer initially considered dyes from fruits and plants but realized that they had their own negative environmental impact as well. Stones, on the other hand, are in abundance, but Maarek didn’t just grab any stone. The stones are locally sourced, that is, they come from different regions in Israel. And to make the process environment-friendly from start to finish, the stones were gathered while journeying on foot or by bus.

The glass itself is made from typical ingredients like silica, sodium bicarbonate, dolomite, and the like, while crushed stone powder is mixed in to act as natural dye. The stones themselves come in various forms like potash, copper, sand, and clay, and this variety has resulted in different colors and textures. So far, the process has yielded colors such as moldavite green, turquoise blue, indigolite, amber-orange, and tourmaline yellow, all without the use of harmful chemicals and materials.

There are some considerations that make this sustainable way of making colored glass a bit more difficult than normal, harmful colored glass. For example, the glass was melted at only 1,200C for hours, which is a lower but more sustainable temperature. This meant that the glass had to be mold-blown rather than using a more common hand-blowing technique.

The result, however, is definitely worth all that work, with a beautiful piece of colored glass that can withstand pressure up to 5 tons. It can also survive temperature changes without cracking, unlike regular colored glass. And even if made with unconventional materials and methods, the result is glass that can be used as a more durable alternative to Haute Joaillerie, offering gorgeous pieces of gem-like glass that don’t show a single clue that they were colored using ordinary stone.

The post These elegant colored glass pieces are actually dyed using crushed stones first appeared on Yanko Design.

Zeefier is creating sustainable textile dyes from recycled seaweed waste

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Everyone wears clothes and, regardless of your particular style or aesthetic inclinations, those clothes will often have one or more colors. While most of the materials used in textile could be considered sustainable or at least biodegradable, part of their production actually has a tremendous negative impact on the environment. It’s almost too easy to take for granted that the things responsible for our colorful attires harm both the planet and the humans working with these dyes. The need for safer and more sustainable ways to dye textiles has never been greater, and, as always, we only have to look to Mother Nature for the answers to many of the problems we have made for ourselves.

Designer: Nienke Hoogvliet

Despite its almost pejorative name, people have started to recognize the benefits of seaweed, at least beyond just an ingredient for food. True to its name, it is almost too easy to grow seaweed without the need for freshwater or agricultural land. And like any other plant, it purifies CO2 and produces life-sustaining oxygen. Seaweed has also become a favorite component in cosmetics these days, which has increased their use and, unfortunately, their waste.

The startup Zeefier is trying to fight two battles on different fronts. On the one hand, it is trying to promote the use of seaweed to solve many of the sustainability problems of the fashion industry, particularly in the use of synthetic dyes. On the other hand, it is also trying to avoid pushing “seagricultural” practices that could also harm the environment in other ways. So instead, the seaweed they are using for their 100% natural dyes is collected from food and cosmetic wastes, enabling a more circular economy that reduces the risk of growing or harvesting seaweed too much.

Given the nature of seaweed, some might doubt how varied the dyes produced from these plants can be. In truth, the potential colors do seem to sit on a specific range, but it isn’t at all limited as one might presume. There are, of course, browns and greens, but there are also oranges, purples, and even pinks. Despite the existence of red seaweed, red dye has proven to be a bit problematic so far. Blue, at least for now, seems to be out of the question, too.

There are apparently other bumps in the road in creating natural dyes from seaweed or any other organic material in general. There’s the potential discoloration over time, even if subtle. These natural substances also don’t seem to work well with anything but natural materials like cotton, silk, and wool. Perhaps it is a good thing in order to sway people away from synthetic textiles as well.

Fortunately, Zeefier is intent on developing the secret sauce to make seaweed-based dyes and textiles successful and commercially viable. This kind of sustainable thinking pushes bright minds to utilize the wealth of materials that the Earth provides us, especially the ones that are easily replenished. At the same time, Zeefier’s advocacy is also a testament to how an overabundance of anything can be harmful and that we don’t really need to grow or harvest more seaweed than what we’re already throwing away.

The post Zeefier is creating sustainable textile dyes from recycled seaweed waste first appeared on Yanko Design.