About Us
Naturally dyed Botanica Tinctoria trimmings and threads offer designers, sewers, costumers and makers of sustainable textiles and fashion a wide range of beautiful and fast colours. The curated collection of trimmings includes ribbons, eyelet lace, rick rack, and hand-crocheted lace edgings as well as cotton, linen and lustrous Eri silk embroidery threads. The harmonious and luminous palette of 14 natural colours is sourced from traditional dye plants such as indigo and madder. All our processes work with the rhythms of the natural world, and our textiles are created in a holistic relationship with our earth.
Reviving historical practices and implementing current ecological ideas, our organic cotton trimmings and organic silk, cotton + linen embroidery threads are dyed with BioDye India using a closed loop process. BioDye uses dyes, mordants and auxiliaries that are environmentally safe. Dyestuffs are obtained from sustainable sources such as leaves, fruits and regenerative stems of plants, and all waste materials are biodegradable. In fact, waste products, including compost and irrigation-quality water, are used to grow dye crops, medicinal plants and food crops for in-house consumption. Through collaboration with village women’s groups, dye plants are collected locally and firewood is gathered from renewable forests and used in fuel-efficient stoves in the dye house. BioDye also works with local farmers to support the re-introduction of indigo in agriculturally depleted regions, contributing to sustainable livelihoods. At the end of their useful life, all of our materials can be safely returned to the earth through composting.
Combining contemporary environmental thinking with science and blending this with historic dye knowledge, Botanica Tinctoria offers a range of sustainable and beautiful high quality materials for the creative designer or maker. If you want to see and feel the materials, you can visit us at Sustainable Angle and Common Objective in London, or order our sample pack. We're always happy to work with designers and brands; please be in touch if you want to know any more about our trims + threads.
Botanica Tinctoria materials are created by designer Rachel MacHenry. For more details on her work in developing craft + design projects with artisans around the world, please visit Handwork Studio www.handwork-studio.com