Dyes to Absolutely DIE For, Darling

By Mary Beth Karoll

Tired of your all-white living room? Does Zen serenity now seem sedate, if not depressingly dull? What was beachy just looks bleached out? Once you had attained the pristine pinnacle of faultless chic, and your friends and frenemies marveled at your panache and your ability to keep your white sofas sparkling clean. All of the East End wondered how you managed such control over your precocious brood, champion dogs, feisty ferrets, and your housekeeper, as your sleek sectional was immaculate. But now the upholstery may be looking just a mite dingy. Your decorator painstakingly curated each colorless element, yet the sunlit expanse of perfect nothingness seems sterile and impersonal. What was once cool appears stiff and contrived. You need a psychedelic prescription, a little super-saturated color to bring things back into perspective. White is a bit too safe nowadays, a tad facile as a decorating scheme, so why not rev up the energy with some dyes to die for?

Far be it from this article to take sides in the hotly contested debate between mass-market RIT dyes and the more expensive, chemical Procion dyes, championed by some know-it-alls as the only way to go. All I can say is, at the grocery store it's better to ask where the RIT is than the RID (a lice joke for those parents just waiting for the kiddies to come back from camp with something more lively and long-lasting than a lanyard). In a 1971 advertisement published in Women's Day magazine, when housewives and hippies alike were tuning in and turning on to tie-dye and dropping out of life to live in tie-dye communes, I saw that there were then 35 colors of RIT available. Well, at present RIT makes 26 colors, but the home scientist can blend them into a stunning spectrum of delicious custom tints including apricot, avocado, banana, caramel, celery, champagne, mustard, paprika, and shrimp pink. Recipes for the scrumptious shades are on the RIT website, ritdye.com. If too much color is anathema to your refined sensibilities, combining RIT colors can even result in subtle bone, cream, eggshell, and ivory, all of which might add some variety to your interiors!

Tie-dye may evoke the cliché of typical Deadhead tour gear, the brightly-colored spiral design t-shirts wrapped and dipped while tripping out to an extended hour-long live version of Truckin'. In sharp contrast, this article takes sexy and sophisticated high fashion of the late 60s and early 70s as a model. I prefer to evoke the hijacking of hippie style by suave tastemaker Halston, whose devoted coterie of socialite, model and actress fans was passionate about his handmade, dyed silk chiffons and velvets. Always in perfect taste, he gave the counterculture design statement a cultured, couture, swanky spin. Just do an Internet search for images, and you can imagine how the patterns of Halston's ponchos and pantsuits could translate into dazzling draperies for your home.

Looking to the high point of the tie-dye trend, a wonderful source of inspiration is East Hampton's Jack Lenor Larson. In the late 1960s, the influential fabric designer debuted Chan-Chan, a gorgeous tie-dyed fabric in a luscious color combination of hot pink and golden brown. An ideal intersection of structure or planned pattern and the vagaries of chance is what makes for the rhythmic flows of color. Intended for the high-end decorating market, the luxurious hand-dyed fabric was produced in Kenya. A group of fifty crafty women stood in a long line folding 50-foot lengths of fabric to the beat of a drum! The pleated fabric was wrapped in raffia and dyed, then some of the raffia was removed, and the fabric was dyed again. While such a large contingent of artisans presents a festive image of teamwork, one can accomplish much alone or with a friend.

If you need inspiration, the August 1971 issue of House and Garden cover story features a lovely sunlit terrace room in shades of blue, designed by none other than the team who tie-dyed for Halston, former window decorators Will and Eileen Richardson of Up-Tied in Manhattan. These pioneers in the art of dyeing give instructions for tying, wrapping and dipping sheets from Sears to make the zigzag curtains, star pillow covers, sofa and pouf covers. For a limited time, this seminal article will be available to any intrigued reader who requests it from the author! Studying such a vintage magazine spread and translating it for your needs, or working with directions on the Internet for the classic rosette and donut shapes of tie-dying can then lead to free expressions and experiments with color and form. The combination of blue and white is easy and classic, (but refer to the photograph shown here), the stunning Marisa Berenson in Halston, for how an unexpected touch of olive can spice up the mix.

Tie-dye is all about experimenting, so relax and have fun! Start with some old bed linens and see what marvelous alchemy you can cook up in your kitchen.

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