The way we colour our clothes feels late to the party – all those bright patterns hanging on clothing rails in shops come at a terrible cost. From carbon emissions and animal cruelty to union busting and the reality of working in an industry when the pace is hectic and optics are everything, fashion is under considerable scrutiny. The resurgence has been encouraged by Covid lockdowns, 'which allowed people to explore the craft at home,' says natural-dyeing enthusiast and teacher Susan Dye (who says she has 'no idea whether my name tracks back to plant dyers in my family tree'.) It's unlikely, though, that the practice would have caught on in quite the same way if not for a continually growing discomfort about fashion's heavy footprint. An ancient craft, natural dyeing is a practice whose time has come again, with hand tie-dyed fashion also making a comeback in recent years. Meanwhile, influencers on TikTok have given #plantdyeing the rubber stamp of a new generation. In 2022, campaign group Fashion Revolution chose a dye garden for its Chelsea Flower Show presentation. After her first successful publication Botanical Inks in 2018, Behan has just released a second, Botanical Dyes. Bella Gonshorovitz's book Grow, Cook, Dye, Wear was a surprise hit in 2022, combining instructions on natural dye with plant-based recipes, vegetable growing and zero-waste clothing design.

Online courses and communities have blossomed, with more and more practitioners wanting to share their skills. Eight ways to make your clothes last longerīehan, a pioneer in UK-based large-scale natural dye productions, is one of a cohort of committed natural dye specialists seeing a resurgence in their craft: the dyeing of fabrics with colours derived from plants. It's the colour of the sky and the sea – and we can't capture it from anywhere except from this one indigo pigment.' There's something so special about that because it's the colour of our planet. Then you take the fabric out of the water and you'll see it turn from green to blue as it oxidises. It's not water soluble – so you have to go through this charming, alchemical, almost mystical process, to make it bond with the fibre. 'But, if I had to choose one, indigo stands out. 'Like people, they all have such a beautiful variety of different characteristics,' she says. Natural dye specialist Babs Behan laughs when asked about her favourite natural dye plant.

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