THE COLOURS YOU CAN OBTAIN FROM PLANTS ARE SO BEAUTIFUL… THIS IS THE ONE AND ONLY REASON I DO WHAT I DO” 

- SACHIO YOSHIOKA, MASTER DYER.

Natural dyes are a great adventure for budding witches and alchemists. These dyes are very reactive and go through magical colour transformations - alchemists of old believed these changes of colour were akin to a transformation of the self. The history of dyeing is vast and rich, you could devote you entire life to this alone.

Today, as people are becoming more aware of the burden that fast fashion places on our planet, there is a growing interest in natural dyes - but the problem is actually very complicated. What is undoubtedly true is the sublime beauty of plant-based dyes - synthetic dyes simply cannot compete.

For a very long time, the colours you wore signified your status and wealth. In my home country of the UK sumptuary laws applied to clothing kept the class system firmly in place. Only the richest could afford the luminous and exotic colours of other lands. The trade of these dyes was incredibly lucrative and there is a grim, bloodied history to accompany it.

These days we have synthetic dyes and colours no longer hold the same meaning. We live in a democracy of colour - but this has come at another cost.

A complicated world of colour indeed.