What Is Tie-Dye?

How is tie-dye made?

Tie-dye is made by binding parts of a finished cloth or garment tightly before it goes into the dye, so the bound areas resist the colour. For bandhani, the Indian craft organisation Khamir describes cloth tied tightly with thread in multiple places before dyeing, which gives simple or complex patterns of dots, squares, waves or stripes.

Ways of making the resist

• Tying. Points of cloth are lifted and wrapped. The V&A notes that tying small stones or seeds into àdìrẹ cloth makes small circles, and binding a lifted point makes larger ones.
• Stitching. Lines of sewing are pulled tight before dyeing.
• Folding and binding. The V&A describes cloth folded corner to corner like a concertina, then bound very tightly at several points.
• Clamping. Japanese dyers have a separate word, itajime, for cloth clamped between shaped blocks.

Àdìrẹ dyers repeated the indigo dip to make the colour darker (V&A). In the Arimatsu and Narumi districts of Japan, the traditional tie-dyeing industry lists more than 100 techniques, among them nui shibori (sewn) and kumo shibori (“cloud”), and the processes are divided among different workers. Arimatsu-Narumi work uses silk or cotton, while classic àdìrẹ was dyed on factory-made cotton.

Where does tie-dye come from?

Tie-dye has no single origin: the name covers resist techniques practised in many regions, and where the method first began is undocumented. The Online Etymology Dictionary records tie-dye from 1904, used of the fabric arts of India, and the Science History Institute notes that “tied dyeing” was the more common name before the 1960s.

South Asia: bandhani

Bandhani is an Indian term for tie-dyeing cloth after it is woven, according to the RISD Museum. Khamir derives the name from the Sanskrit bandha and links it to the Gujarati bandhavanu, “to tie”. In Gujarat the work is done primarily by the Muslim Khatri community, and Kachchh is home to many of its most prolific artists; women do the tying, while men generally do the dyeing and business management. In a 1909 article in The Craftsman, the chemistry professor Charles E. Pellew called Indian dyers the originators and perfectors of many tie-dye techniques.

Japan: shibori

In Japan the technique is known as shibori. Japan’s Association for the Promotion of Traditional Craft Industries says the tie-dyeing technique originated in the Nara period, and that Arimatsu-Narumi shibori, made along the old Tōkaidō road, was established around the beginning of the Edo period. It was designated a traditional craft on 4 September 1975.

West Africa: àdìrẹ

Àdìrẹ means “tie and dye” in Yoruba. The V&A says the term was first used in the early 20th century, although the technique dates to the 1800s. The cloths were traditionally made and worn by women throughout the Yoruba region of south-western Nigeria. Women usually prepared and always dyed them; cloths made with a sewing machine were made by men. Àdìrẹ became more popular in the 1920s with imported European cotton shirting, and by the 1960s it was being tailored into garments such as men’s shirts. The V&A notes that it remains a popular fashion choice in Nigeria and beyond.

Indonesia: plangi and tritik

Indonesian makers call tied resists plangi and stitched resists tritik (RISD Museum).

How did tie-dye become popular in the United States?

In the United States, tie-dye was popular in two waves: briefly in the 1920s and 1930s, and widely in the 1960s and 1970s, according to the Science History Institute. Home dyers had cheap materials early. Rit, an inexpensive “direct” dye, went on sale in 1916, and a 1928 booklet, The Charm of Color, included a section on tied dyeing.

In its issue of 26 January 1970, TIME reported that tie-dyeing had become a sudden fad in both high and low fashion, found in boutiques on Sunset Strip and Madison Avenue. The magazine traced this latest version to “the flower children of California”, the young people at the heart of hippie fashion. It noted how cheap the craft was: a 32-cent T-shirt could be transformed for little extra. The Science History Institute notes a further resurgence of home tie-dyeing during the COVID-19 pandemic.

What are the main types of tie-dye?

The main types are named traditions, each with its own resist.

Tie-dye vs ikat vs batik

All three are resist methods, but each applies the resist at a different point: tie-dye binds finished cloth, ikat ties the threads before weaving, and batik puts wax on woven cloth.

How do you tell good tie-dye from poor tie-dye?

Judge hand tie-dye by the marks the process leaves: natural shade variation and, on traditional cloths, signs of how the piece was assembled.

• Don’t judge by regularity alone. Hand tying can produce planned patterns of dots, squares, waves or stripes (Khamir), so a neat, repeating design is not proof of machine work.
• Read shade variation as character. Japan’s crafts listing says variations in shade give indigo tie-dyeing its texture, so a slightly uneven blue is not a fault.
• Find the seam on a Yoruba wrapper. Àdìrẹ cloths were usually made from two strips of factory cotton sewn into a rough square and worn as wraps around the body. On folded-and-bound cloths, joining the two dyed halves creates a diamond pattern (V&A).
• Check vintage pieces for fading. Few American tie-dyes from the 1920s survive with their colours intact, because many American dyes of the time resisted fading poorly (Science History Institute). Compare the colour inside a seam with the exposed face to see how colourfast it has been.
• Ask who made it. A maker from the community can name the technique and place.

Are tie-dye dyes natural or synthetic?

Tie-dye can use either. Historically, tie-dyers used natural colours from organic material; synthetic dyes followed the first synthetic fabric dye, an aniline dye, in 1856 (Science History Institute). Àdìrẹ takes its blue from imported indigo grains or locally grown indigo leaves (V&A), and Japan’s crafts listing notes that chemical dyes are common in Arimatsu, though one maker it features insists on real indigo.