Studio Offerings
Conscious Color is all about “monetizing knowledge, not monetizing product making.” With community and shared creation at its forefront, the brand’s goal is to share education, as this is how change truly spreads. With each garment, each dye bath, we also include the storytelling and the origin story.
Conscious Color is a textile design studio offering:
An educational platform and storytelling services
Consultation on natural dyeing
Small batch or bespoke custom dyeing in New York state
We work with individuals, independent brands, and larger brands that are “open and willing to take on something new, willing to change,” and most notably, “committed to integrating regenerative processes into their life, business, and artistry.” In a sea of brands touting green narratives, capsule eco-collections, and the like, Conscious Color values timeless, circular design over all else. There is no prerequisite of natural dyeing knowledge to work with our studio, we are open to all clients working with fabric, regardless of expertise. Due to the tactile nature of color and fabric, we prefer to work with local NY clients, although open to collaborate globally.
Acting as an educational platform, Conscious Color aims to maintain and spread the art of natural dyeing, taking it beyond the tangible product. Aesthetic as well as medicinal properties of natural dyes have been explored and utilized since ancient times, and working with brands to preserve & share this knowledge before it is lost forever is a forefront priority. Beyond the positive environmental impact that natural dyes have, they also carry a message to humanity to slow down, create less, and to release control. Our team can collaborate with your brand to craft compelling content across all of your platforms about the positive environmental and health impacts of choosing natural dyes. We create stories, videos, and photos of the process to share with your audience - on all social media platforms, website, newsletter, and on the garment’s tags. We also offer branded How To instructions for brands to distribute to customers on naturally dyeing your garment at home using your collection’s products.
Conscious Color’s consultation services assist in all aspects of textile sourcing, dyeing and production. Our experienced team can guide you in sourcing the perfect textile for your project. We always prioritize local and organic methods, and are able to give consultation on how to take steps in that direction.
Dyeing services are bespoke and tailored to the client, as we work with fashion, interior, and art brands to dye garments to the designer’s specifications, or create custom naturally dyed yardage. Our techniques include: batik, bundle dyeing with flowers, color matching, food waste colors, hand painting, shibori, ombre, and more. Products that we offer (or will in the future) range from natural dye kits for brand and farm partnerships, made to order naturally dye fabrics with seasonal and local colors, and natural dye material (foraged and locally grown). Before working with us, it is important to know how natural dyes might take to your brand’s fabrics. Materials from the earth work best with the same. Our studio only works with natural fibers such as cellulose or plant fibers - cotton, hemp, bamboo, linen, jute, any fabric that is made from a plant - as well as protein fabrics such as silk, wool, cashmere, fur and feathers. If your fabric has a blend of synthetic fibers, the pigment will not be as saturated into the garment but will still apply to the cloth. Indigo is our special exception, as it is not a dye, but a pigment; instead of fixing inside of the threads, it lays on top of the material, allowing it to work well with nylon and dye some other synthetic fibers.
It all starts with the materials. From there, every process is unique to the client, and every interaction creates distinctive relationships. While we do have a formula to begin the conversation, every designer and brand is different - catering to each client’s specifics is all a part of the creative process. Beginning stages involve a great deal of testing; more specifically, testing fabrics for wash fast, light fast, color fast, etc. We do an overview of the fabric your brand uses and assess if they are the best choice for natural dyes. These initial steps largely involve sample making and consulting, and helping clients choose the best fabrics for their vision.
Recently we worked with Greats Sneaker Company in Brooklyn, NY. While working with them, we co-created photos, videos and an interview to accompany the earth day launch of the eco royal sneaker dyed with ethically foraged logwood. We provided our in-house photographer and videographer to capture all of the content around the process. Greats team edited the content to fit their own platforms and speak to their audience with It was an earth day launch of an organic USA milled and grown cotton canvas sneaker with recycled soles and laces.
Working with brands and clients in New York is our preference, as meeting in person to review swatches, see our studio, and understand more of the process is vital in our creative collaboration. Although, we do offer our services to clients located throughout the USA, as we will ship samples to you and happily communicate via video calls. If you are located outside of the USA, we will charge a higher rate for shipping and will need to make sure our time zones align when we review swatches and design notes. Conscious Color values these unique relationships with our clients, and ongoing partnerships with brands looking to include natural dyeing in their products is a perfect match for our studio. Creating a long term relationship with a client allows the process to become more seamless over time, as we develop an individualized system built just for you.
If you are here at the beginnings of your exploration, dipping your toes into the world of regenerative textiles, that curiosity is all that is needed. And why choose natural dyeing? Textile dyeing is the second largest global polluter of clean water, after agriculture. Since our water sources are finite, the challenges of accessing clean drinking water will only increase — by 2050 global demand for freshwater is expected to increase by 55%. Synthetic dyes come from cracking crude oil, are not biodegradable and use heavy metals to fix the color to the cloth. Textile dyeing is destroying the eco systems and drinking water where synthetic dye houses are located.
Natural dyes are colorants used since ancient times from plant sources— roots, berries, bark, leaves, wood and other biological sources such as insects, fungi and lichen. They are biodegradable, regenerative and nontoxic. These dyes are safer for the environment in terms of clean discharge and regenerative sources. Natural and local color CREATES A STORY, IMBUES VALUE into the lives of local community and preserves an ancient dying art form.
Author, Hannah RossEditor, Madison Brito