Designers such as Collina Strada and John Elliott were all about incorporating tie dye into their

collections. Ashley Graham walked the Prabal Gurung show in a statement-making top and matchy-
matchy vest and skirt.

For the past few seasons, tie-dye has appeared on spring and fall runways in fresh and versatile
ways, playing on various decades of the enduring print. It is is most synonymous with the 1960s,
when the vibrant colors blended to embody the free-spirited and eccentric hippie lifestyle. The
practice and technique of tie-dyeing developed long before then, however, as various cultures
across Asia, Africa, and the Americas employed similar techniques for naturally dyeing textiles as
early as the sixth century. Millenia later, tie-dye became the zeitgeist of the 1960s, becoming a trend
taken up by musicians that defined the countercultural style of the decade. It continued to live on
the fringes of the 1970s disco era, and rose again in the 1980s and '90s as colorful and bold style that
teens gravitated towards. CR looks at tie-dye on catwalks and beyond, to points in history and pop
culture defined by the abstract dye.

Tie-dye has been trending in fashion circles for years at this point—from Kwaidan Editions’ cult-hit
spiral T-shirt in 2017 to the fetishization of Grateful Dead shirts by streetwear-loving tastemakers
from Jonah Hill to Quavo. Rihanna went viral late last year in a one-off tie-dye dress by the brand
Asai, whose popularity remained at such a high that the designer recently put it into production,
with 100 percent of the proceeds going to charities that support Black Lives Matter.

Still, it’s arguably reached its mass inflection point in quarantine. In the early days of the lockdown,
the tie-dye sweatsuit became the official uniform for everyone from antsy celebrities stuck at home
to hype-house teens. Hailey Bieber sported a rainbow set by her husband's line Drew; Jordyn Woods
wore a green version. The style equivalent of a shruggie emoji, it was casual, cheery, and youthful all
at once.

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As comforting as the process of making tie-dye is for Povitsky, it's even more comforting to wear.
"I’m soothed by the youthfulness" of the motif, she says. It also evokes the sunny idealism of its
sixties heyday. Naomi Fry, a staff writer at The New Yorker who has written about the tie dye-centric
early days of the brand Online Ceramics, thinks the phenomenon is built on “reaching back to the
past as a kind of comforting thing...There’s a nostalgic element there; there’s a yearning for
simplicity, for innocence. Whether it’s imagined or not is another issue.” Writer Jonah Weiner, who
co-founded the fashion newsletter Blackbird Spyplane, notes that the clothing evokes “music
festivals, jam-band tours, and other posi-vibed mass gatherings, all of which COVID made impossible
and which we're feeling especially nostalgic for as a result.”

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Personally, I associate this particular expression of tie-dye so much with this point in time that I
wondered if, to slip into programming language, it was a feature or a bug of contemporary fashion.
When we look back on 2020, will it resemble, in hindsight, a sea of tie-dye in the same way that 2010
felt synonymous with digital prints? Will we still want to wear it after the ever-anticipated moment
when "all this ends?”

But just when I thought I was out, tie-dye pulled me back in. A look through the resort shows led me
to the conclusion that it isn’t going anywhere—it’s simply mutating. Dior, Chanel, and Gabriela
Hearst were among a clutch of designers showing tie-dye for the season, but their takes felt more
subdued: at Dior, it showed up on the collar of a jacket or at the hemline of a skirt, while Hearst
opted for overall prints in subdued, autumnal colors.

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For Fry, the print's presence on the runway “brings it to a different realm. It’s taking something that
was associated with a particular look and moving it a register.” At this point, tie-dye “almost
becomes a neutral,” she says. Like khakis, jeans, or a white T-shirt, it has become “part of the
American fashion vernacular that’s not wholly identified with any one label or with any one
movement,” she says. “[It] can be incorporated into a person’s look in a way that doesn’t have
associations that completely kill it.”

While she’s not a fan of the mass-produced iteration of the trend, Fry has a soft spot for tie-dye that
feels authentic, like a homemade T-shirt she found on the street in Park Slope. “It was clearly
handmade, that someone had made at camp,” she says. “When it feels more singular, or it’s less
identifiable and feels a little bit more personal, I feel like that sort of thing is still quote-unquote OK
to wear, and will probably continue to live on, as something relevant and not copycat-y.” Weiner’s
preferred type of tie-dye is “something that a human hand made, full of idiosyncrasies and
imperfections.” Along those lines, he says, “tie-dyed clothes might speak subliminally to the isolation
that people are feeling right now—not to mention the vogue for making things at home, whether it's
a shirt or a loaf of bread.” And indeed, at-home tie-dye is booming: Kacey Musgraves's merch store
now features a $99 "self-care kit" that includes a DIY tie-dye kit.

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Certainly, diehard aficionados, the kind Fry calls “total trainspotters [who] can tell things I can’t, like
‘This shirt is from this tour from 1982'’” aren’t letting go of their spiral-dyed Grateful Dead grails
anytime soon. “It's important to distinguish between different audiences when we think about this,”
Weiner says. “There are Dead fans who looked great wearing tie-dye 10 years ago and who'll look
great wearing it ten years from now, regardless of what people in the fashion world think. And at
another extreme there's a super mass audience that will buy junky industrially printed tie-dye now
because it's in ads on their Facebook feeds.” What he finds striking is that the two are, for now,
coexisting: “Even though the mainstream has fully hopped onto the trend, that hasn't killed its
appeal yet for fashion-minded people who fell in love with, like, tie-dyed Kapital pants a few years
ago.”

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Blackbird Spyplane published a recent edition addressing the tightrope walk between coolness and
lameness that is wearing tie-dye in 2020. Under-the-radar labels like Ni En More and Tezomeya were
among their recommendations, and keeping the color palette subtle is crucial. “We personally have
an interest in looking 'under the radar,' so yeah, at this point when it comes to tie-dye we're most
interested in natural- and veggie-dye techniques, where the colors are striking and subtle and age in
beautiful ways, and which connect to culture-spanning, centuries-old techniques that are trend-
proof,” Weiner says. “Also industrial dyes are a huge pollutant, whereas using pomegranate skins to
get a shade of yellow doesn't have the same ecological impact. And we've been looking at designs
that deviate from the more-familiar spiral patterns, like big color-blocks or super intricate shibori
where you can't believe the piece was hand-dyed.”

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In fact, the demand for Povitsky's hand-dyed work has been so great that she’s planning to expand
beyond just producing it herself. Like the ultimate comfort food, macaroni and cheese, tie-dye
seems to have staying power, whether it's the artisanal version or the from-a-box classic. For her, tie
dye “is always in the conversation," she says. "It’s just [a question of] how are you using it?”

Véronique Hyland Véronique Hyland is ELLE’s fashion features director.

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Up until fairly recently, tie-dye was as dead as a doornail. But then Beyoncé wore it on holiday on
the beach, Dree Hemingway chose the print for a red-carpet event and Justin Bieber turned up to
church wearing it. Cult LA brand The Elder Statesman made it a mainstay of its vibrant, California-
inspired collections. Last season, Prada, Proenza Schouler, Stella McCartney and R13 turned it into a
catwalk trend and the high street is already making copies. Global fashion search platform Lyst
reports that tie-dye is one of the fastest growing fashion search keywords of the year so far and the
Proenza turtleneck is the ninth hottest women’s product. Shopping app LiketoKnow.it reveals that
searches for 'tie-dye shirts' are up 900 per cent this month compared to May. Tie-dye is back.

Tie-dye is back at Paris Fashion Week

by Harper's BAZAAR UK

Current Time 0:00

Duration 0:19

“It was a huge trend that we saw both on and off the runway and we embraced it from a wide
variety of brands,”Net-a-Porter global buying director Elizabeth von der Goltz told us. “T-shirts were
our key item; think the Ibiza degrade at Chloé, the purple tie-dye at Paco Rabanne, a bright and
vibrant version at R13 and Stella McCartney’s oversized T-shirt dresses in pastels colours.”

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Surfer girl T-shirts might be the obvious and most accessible choice (and doubtlessly the incarnation
most favoured by fashion influencers), but it’s the evolution of tie-dye that makes it feel fresh for
2019. Proenza Schouler applied the technique to denim, while Prada elevated the famously hippy
print by using it on feminine silhouettes such as mini dresses and A-line skirts. Couture fabrics such
as duchess satin furthered tie-dye’s luxury credentials.

Proenza Schouler tie dye

Proenza Schouler spring/summer 2019

Getty

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Prada tie dye

Prada spring/summer 2019

Getty

“Historically, tie-dye has a hippie, '70s flower power connotation, whereas the new spring tie-dyes
are very modern,” says von der Goltz. “From the more sophisticated colour combinations to the
more elevated fabrics and the unexpected shapes, the new tie-dye is more elevated and fashion
forward.”

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Selfridges has also bought into the trend in a big way, citing Prada, Balmain and MSGM as standout
brands. “Acid washes and bright tones have transformed tie-dye from its hippy roots,” says
Selfridges womenswear buying manager, Luke Mountain, adding that modern iterations go beyond
T-shirts. Tie-dye can be found “splashed across puffer jackets from Shoreditch Ski Club, wool
jumpers from Balmain and embellished skirts and dresses at Prada”.

"On the one hand you want freedom, liberation, fantasy and on the other, you have extreme
conservatism. I wanted to demonstrate the clash between these two opposites."

The Milanese fashion house introduced tie-dye as an element to subvert the classic 50s ladylike
aesthetic, breaking dresses, skirts and even the famous Sidonie bag with lively color games. The
typical designs of this dyeing technique lose all unpredictability to transform themselves, as the
brand itself explains, "color ranges that are meticulously controlled and printed on luxurious silk and
satin which is then ironed and pleated and on refined knits, original technical fabrics and fine
leathers". Now that the collection has arrived in stores and online, Prada has published a video
making of to show the technique used to obtain those hypnotic nuances.

MAKING OF TIE-DYE
Prada interprets the ancient tie-dye technique in a completely new way, creating garments and
accessories with couture allure and a vibrant mood.

Hypnotic shading, abstract shapes and magnetic graphic motifs transform iconic haute couture
fabrics and materials in a surprising way.

Typical tie-dye patterns lose all of their unpredictability to become shadows, gradient nuances and
color ranges that are meticulously controlled and printed on luxurious silk and satin which is then
ironed and pleated and on refined knits, original technical fabrics and fine leathers to invent Prada’s
tie-dye couture.

The result is stunning dresses, skirts and tops and deluxe small leather goods featuring psychedelic
effects and a vague fifties vibe.

Dior

Couture tie-dye? It may sound like a paradox, but if you consider the handmade, one-of-a-kind
nature of tie-dye—an old-school combination of knotting, twisting, and dipping fabric into a vat of
color—it actually makes perfect sense in a couture atelier. For her Spring 2019 collection, Dior
creative director Maria Grazia Chiuri worked with her petites mains on a series of floaty tie-dye
dresses, some of them featuring as many as 12 kaleidoscopic prints mixed together or layered with
hand-painted flowers. The concept wasn’t inspired by the ’70s or hippie culture, as one might
assume, but by the early days of modern dance. “In dance, the movements follow the music, but
they also have their own contrasting rhythm, made up of various speeds: surges and slow passages,”
Chiuri tells Vogue. “These elements made me think of a kaleidoscope, like a return of the cinematic
experiments of one of the innovators of the dance world, Loie Fuller.”

Fuller was known for incorporating extra-long, flowing fabrics into her choreography, a trick that
often mimicked giant wings. Perhaps Chiuri’s swishy plissé gowns were a nod to those performances,
but the kaleidoscopes were a more conceptual, surprising twist. Here, Dior shared an exclusive
behind-the-scenes glimpse at how they were actually made: Four print designers worked on the 12
kaleidoscope designs, and began by hand-painting watercolors and ink on blotting papers, then
folded them carefully to create the symmetrical kaleidoscope patterns. Those papers were then
layered on top of one another to create a “hazier,” 3-D effect, and eventually the prints were
transferred to the squares of silk that became Chiuri’s scarf dresses.

Other prints were created using the real-deal, humble tie-dye technique. First, the print designers
painted “wilting, collapsing” flowers on paper, including a lily of the valley design based on an
archival Dior print from 1957. Those flowers were then transferred onto silk panels, which were
rolled, twisted, and tied one by one before being submerged into the inky-blue dye. The finished
results combine tie-dye’s rebellious, ’60s streak with Dior’s 71-year-old couture heritage and the
free-spirited way women will be dressing in 2019. “Tie-dye is a stand-apart technique, closely linked
to experimentation, [and it’s] always random,” Chiuri says. “It has a popular, alternative [history],
and its creative process is a sort of unpredictable performance, right until the very end. It’s a
surprise, a spectacle.”

2020 tie and dye

The Tie-Dye Trend Isn’t Going Anywhere Yet: Step Into The New Season With These Chic Pieces

Tie-dye prints are the simplest way to brighten up any outfit. Here’s every way to style the trend for
this season and beyond!

 by Gina Marinelli

 Last Updated:  Aug 12, 2020

Edited by Jaclyn Bloomfield

For many, tie-dye instantly brings to mind vivid memories — anything from childhood summers
spent crafting in the woods of New England to beloved pieces of vintage Grateful Dead merch you’ll
never part with. But as playful and nostalgic as tie-dye is, it’s more than just your average print
trend. Its history dates back much further than Woodstock and the enduring look tool center-stage
on the spring/summer 2020 runways. 

Similar to ancient dying techniques such as Japanese Shibori or Batik methods popular in South East
Asia, tie-dye is not for the faint of heart. Though past runway seasons have shown their share of it
this spring/summer, tie-dye has now infiltrated the collections of Versace, Tibi, Dior, and more. Even
further ahead, Chanel’s Métiers d’Art 2020 included sophisticated tees with a rainbow of swirling
colors and classic suiting in a hazy blend of purple, blue, and black.

The reason designers are continually drawn to tie-dye finishes may well be because of its timeless
charm and versatility. While tie-dye T-shirts may seem like an obvious match for denim shorts and
sandals in warmer months, there are plenty of other inspired ways to wear the trend.

Keep reading to get a closer look at the psychedelic, yet sophisticated, print and how to style it in the
chicest ways this season!
Versace SS20 / Peter Pilotto SS20 / Isabel Marant SS20 / Dior SS20 / Tibi SS20

1 /7

The Pastel Tie-Dye

The pastel tie-dye color palette is both soft and springtime-appropriate. For those not looking for a
traditional clashing combination of saturated hues, these sherbet tones offer an alternative that
works well in small doses — simple slides or special jewelry designs — or in a sleek, classic slip dress
silhouette that’s perfect for summer months. 

Shop the Look

DANNIJO Dress $350.00 BUY NOW

PRABAL GURUNG Sweatshirt $895.00 BUY NOW

LOUIS VUITTON LV ESCALE Sandals $760.00 BUY NOW

MARLO LAZ Necklace $3,790.00 BUY NOW

2 /7

The Print-on-Print

For an especially daring approach, pair tie-dye pieces with other patterns, such as stripes, polka dots,
or, as demonstrated by Gigi Hadid, leopard print. While it’s a decidedly bold look, the mixture can
work well when each piece falls within the same bright citrus color scheme. This approach works just
as well in a cool blue tonal ensemble, completed by Louis Vuitton’s latest tie-dye Speedy bag.

Shop the Look

DANNIJO Sweatshirt $145.00 BUY NOW

LOUIS VUITTON LV Escale Speedy Bag $2,220.00 BUY NOW

Dior Trousers $1,200.00 BUY NOW

BOTTEGA VENETA Sandals $790.00 BUY NOW

3 /7

The Updated Denim & Tie-Dye Combo

Naturally, the tie-dye T-shirt — pre-made or DIY’d (more on that later) — is a classic companion for
denim. Think of it as an artful upgrade to your go-to basic white tee, but elevate your outfit with a
pair of minimalist ‘90s strappy heeled sandals and Chanel’s subtly colorful flap bag.

Shop the Look

N:Philanthropy T-Shirt $180.00 BUY NOW

Chanel Flap Bag $3,300.00 BUY NOW

PAIGE Hoxton Jeans $270.00 BUY NOW

THE ROW Bare Sandals $790.00 BUY NOW

4 /7

The Pared-Back Tie-Dye

If you’re looking to ease yourself into the tie-dye trend, stick to one statement printed piece, offset
by complementary, tonal separates. This minimalist approach makes the print feel subtle and chic,
especially when paired with neutral classics such as a boxy denim jacket, fitted tank top, and
timeless Fendi Baguette bag in crisp white.

Shop the Look

ACNE STUDIOS Denim Jacket $440.00 BUY NOW

ZIMMERMANN Tank Top $275.00 BUY NOW

TIBI Trousers $550.00 BUY NOW

FENDI Baguette FF 1974 $2,100.00 BUY NOW

5 /7

The Colorblock

Contrary to the above, you may also be the kind of person who embraces and celebrates color — no
shade too bright, no combination too clashing. For all those tie-dye aficionados, try pairing these
prismatic pink, relaxed-fit jeans by MSGM with a slinky button-down and Jacquemus’ cult-favorite Le
Petit Chiquito in sunshine yellow.

Shop the Look

ALTUZARRA Hartwell Cardigan $795.00 BUY NOW

JACQUEMUS Le Petit Chiquito Bag $256.00 BUY NOW

MSGM Jeans $370.00 BUY NOW

Manu Atelier Lace Sandal $310.00 BUY NOW

6 /7

The Vacation Dress

Tie-dye feels right at home on easy, playful dresses that call to mind summer evening strolls and long
weekends spent at a beach locale. Of course, that’s not to say this look is relegated for only one
occasion; worn with sleek designer slides, a structured pastel handbag, and dreamy opal jewelry, this
ensemble really can go anywhere in summer.

Shop the Look

RHODE Ella Dress $395.00 BUY NOW

PRADA Odette Bag $1,950.00 BUY NOW

IRENE NEUWIRTH Opal Ring $9,060.00 BUY NOW

Dior Sandals $690.00 BUY NOW

7 /7

The Streetwear Look

Tie-dye is a print that doesn’t take itself too seriously, so feel free to let your look reflect that. Pair
together relaxed and comfortable silhouettes for simple, streetwear-inspired results. We love
wearing loose-fit tie-dye pants with a complementary, fitted tank top and elevating the casual look
with elegant, pointed-toe pumps and a minimal it-bag like Bottega Veneta’s Triangle Clutch.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Gilda (@gildaambrosio)

Shop the Look

MSGM Tank Top $356.00 BUY NOW

HUDSON Trousers $265.00 BUY NOW

BOTTEGA VENETA Triangle Clutch $1,980.00 BUY NOW

Balenciaga Pumps $795.00 BUY NOW

New Loungewear Staple

Gigi Hadid / Sai De Silva / Charlotte Groeneveld

So many of us find ourselves relying on the comfort of sweats and athleisure while staying safe at
home – especially during the current pandemic. While many influencers favour matching minimal
sets, the tie-dye trend has visibly emerged amongst these unexpected stay-at-home uniforms.
Thanks to brands like Singer, Ralph Lauren, and many more, color-drenched tie-dye sweat sets have
become ubiquitous across Instagram. It’s no longer about the sole, standout hand-dyed piece — this
loungewear trend is all about head-to-toe power clashing that’s joyful and comfortable in equal
measure.