Using Natural Dyes On Your Clothes Is Easier — And Trendier — Than You Think

Maria Elena Pombo wasn't always color obsessed. When the Parsons fashion graduate landed a job with Michael Kors after school, she preferred working with crisp white fabrics. She almost didn't believe her boyfriend Griffin Moore—also a designer—when he told her that avocado pits could dye cotton a deep, vibrant crimson, and onion skins covered silk in rich yellow and purple hues. It wasn't until a color hunt through the aisles of a Wegmans grocery store in Upstate New York that her passion was born.

Natural dyeing—the process of using plant and animal matter and water to dye clothes without chemical additives—is experiencing a quiet resurgence. Like the macramé get-togethers and flower-arranging retreats that are gaining popularity, it's an Instagram-worthy return to craftsmanship. The adult version of tie-dye, the practice offers a form of expression that's mindful, rewarding, and environmentally friendly. The once-niche practice is becoming more accessible to the masses, and Pombo hopes to carry it even further into the mainstream.

With bags of onion skins and jars of chamomile, rose, and hibiscus at the ready, she brings fabrics to life for her customers and teaches the art of natural dying to curious creatives through workshops and DIY kits.

All of this makes natural dying part art form, part chemistry experiment, and part fingers-crossed magic. You never really know what you're going to come up with, and that's what makes it such an exciting hobby.

This handspun "of the Earth" approach to fabrics is also a more sustainable one. The majority of Pombo's ingredients would have otherwise been thrown away, like all the avocado pits she gets from the Brooklyn staple, Avocaderia (over 100, two to three times a week) and onion skins from local co-ops and farms. She enjoys the regionality of the process, often opting to include local staples in the workshops she teaches. Natural dyes present endless possibilities, and while ones that have tannins tend to leave more of a mark, there's room to play around with new ones. And compared to the traditional dye industry that exposes clothing, workers, and the environment to harsh chemicals, they are also an extremely low-impact alternative.

"There is the little niche of people who care about these things. I think that right now, not a lot of people know about natural dyes, but I think in five years people will become more aware. We ask so many questions about our food. Why shouldn't this be next?" asks Pombo, standing next to a rack of ethereal shirts colored in soft pinks, greens, and yellows.

"I'm hearing a lot of people talk about how they think the future of fashion is wearable tech: shirts with batteries, heated jackets for hunting and running. But I think this—the return to the past—is the way of the future."