About Dyeing

About Dyeing

At yamamayu, color is drawn out slowly, given to thread, and carried into cloth.

At the foot of the mountain, colors are drawn out by hand and gently given to thread and cloth.
Even when the same plant is used, the season, the weather, and the touch of the hand will always bring a slightly different expression.

At yamamayu, plant-based dyes and chemical dyes are not treated as opposites. Each is chosen carefully according to the cloth, the color, and the life the textile is meant to have.

At yamamayu, plant-based dyes and chemical dyes are not opposites. Each is chosen according to the cloth, the color, and the life the textile is meant to have.

How yamamayu Thinks About Color

What matters in color-making is staying close to nature, keeping a balance between gentleness and durability, and working within a living cycle.

Plants gathered from the garden and satoyama, indigo and marigold grown in the fields, and, when necessary, the strength of chemical dyes — all of these belong to the studio’s way of choosing color.
Color is not chosen only by idea, but also by where the cloth is going and how it is meant to live.

Color is chosen with care for both beauty and use: for softness, depth, durability, and the life the cloth will enter.

Plant-based Dyes

Leaves, flowers, bark, seeds, roots — plant-based dyeing begins by drawing color out from these materials and giving it to thread or cloth.
The color does not remain by itself, but gradually settles into the fiber through mordanting.

Even with the same plant, the result shifts with season, weather, mordant, and material.
That shifting quality makes plant-based color difficult to repeat exactly, but it is also what gives it its once-only beauty.

Plant-based dyes shift with season, weather, mordant, and material. Their slight unpredictability is also part of their quiet beauty.

From yellow to yellow-green, brown, red, muted greys, and indigo blue, a wide range of color can emerge from the meeting of plant, mordant, and fiber.

Chemical Dyes

At yamamayu, chemical dyes are also part of the language of color.
For cloth that needs stronger lightfastness or washing durability, Irgalan is used as one of the main dyes.

When plant-based dyes alone cannot reach the brightness or stability needed, chemical dyes help support the life of the cloth.
What matters here, too, is not excess, but choosing only what the work truly needs.

In the years when weaving was done in Hachioji, dyeing belonged to a system of division of labor.
In the Yamanashi studio, both plant color and chemical color are now handled by the family’s own hands, allowing dyeing and weaving to meet more directly inside the making.

Chemical dyes are used when a textile needs greater stability, brightness, or resistance to light and washing. They are part of the studio’s color language, not apart from it.

Indigo

Indigo is not transferred to cloth in the same way as a plant decoction. It is reduced, dyed, and then turns blue through contact with air as it oxidizes.
Fermented indigo holds a layered blue that never feels like a single flat color.

At yamamayu, indigo is less a matter of “putting blue onto cloth” than of letting blue slowly come alive.

Indigo is not simply applied to the cloth. It is reduced, dyed, and then brought into blue through air — a color that feels alive as it grows.

Color Over Time

Plant-based colors change slowly with light and washing.
This is not only fading, but also part of the way color continues to live with the person who uses it.

To help the color last well, it is best to avoid direct sunlight, dry in the shade, store in the shade, and wash gently with a neutral detergent.
If needed, re-dyeing can also be discussed.

Color changes over time. With gentle care, that change becomes part of the life of the cloth.

Dyeing in a Living Cycle

Plants used for dyeing come from satoyama pruning, seasonal grasses, and indigo and marigold grown in the fields. Only what is needed is taken.
After dyeing, the plant matter returns to compost, and the remaining liquid is handled through dilution and neutralization so that the surrounding environment is treated with care.

Dyeing, too, belongs to a cycle of receiving from nature and returning to it gently.
A balance of gentleness and durability for the life of the textile — that is the way yamamayu dyes.

Dyeing, too, belongs to a cycle: receiving from the land, making with care, and returning gently where possible.