Natural Dye reflection
My natural dye project is closely related to the group project that we did during the first weeks of class. Our group did research on natural water systems in New York City and we found out a lot about the history of the East River and the Hudson River. During one of our field trips, we collected bottles of water from different water sources in New York City and it’s clear to see some of the water systems have been polluted and damaged. Throughout the process of doing research, I realized that water is a very important part of our life but most people didn’t really care about the situation of the water pollutions. Most of the time we take water for granted and we don’t even think about it. Therefore, my inspiration was based on how will design raise people’s attention to protecting the water?
I looked at the relationship between the fashion industry and sustainability since these are the trending topics that more and more people start to be aware of. First, I did some research on the sustainability of packaging for luxury brands, such as Louis Vuitton and Gucci. I took Gucci’s packaging as an example, building top of that, I decided to make a tote bag replacing paper bags that Gucci uses right now. I want to combine the bag’s design with natural dye and this bag is meant to be eco-friendly and reusable. I used blueberries and raspberries for dying the cloth, then I made the actual bag. I also combined the idea of saving marine life, especially for dolphins. I did some research on how dolphins died because they were trapped in fishing nets. I use some black laces at the front of the bag in order to show the fishing net that was damaging the ocean.
Finally, I really hope this bag would help people to raise their attention to protecting the water. I think this is very important because we understand that resources are very limited on earth. We can’t just take everything for granted and it’s also our responsibility to take consideration of our future generation’s life.
