Colour From the Garden: Natural Dye Textile Art and the Lost Alchemy of Plant-Based Pigmentation
March 24, 2026 · 7 min
Every colour that existed in human clothing, tapestry, and textile art before 1856 came from a plant, an insect, a mineral, or a mollusc — and the depth, complexity, and luminous warmth of those colours remains unmatched by any synthetic dye chemistry has produced since.