Community Dye Shed

Insatiable doesnt want to add to the chemical load of the planet. We know that acid dyes used in fashion production kill both people and the natural world. We also know there are alternatives. What we want to explore is not only how we start to open conversations about using natural dyes but how we get both the cloth industry and the consumer to embrace them.

Starting a community dye shed enables the exploration of what is possible in bringing natural dyes out to play. Here we can work with a range of 'growers' to support community grown dye plants. These can be on "roundabouts for nature", in back gardens, or grown whole scale on fallow land. There is the seasonal opportunity to use wild plants and to plant in field edges of stewardship schemes on local farms. There is also the exciting possibility to use certain community food waste giving it a real use before it heads to landfill.

A dye shed allows us to colour our own fibres for Drift and to offer the opportunity for the community to learn about where the colour in their clothes from whilst reviving old or unused clothing giving it a second life.

Growing this initiative gives the potential to create dyes for others in commercial weights that we will encourage more fibre and textile producers to embrace natural dyes as a real alternative to the chemically driven alterntives used today.