Story | Bluesville

Going The Natural Way

There was time where people have to travel across the globe to get a certain color. There was time when color is symbol of pride and status. All civilization has find its way in producing the perfect color. In many culture natural dye is so sacred that it’s irreplaceable with any other dye.

Bluesville continues the tradition of respecting color by extracting it directly from nature. Creating a unique character of color that can’t be replicate by man made dye. Process that takes more time and efforts to do. Process that takes passion and understanding of harmony between natural factors.

We make natural dye accessible to everybody by making it in more suitable and practical form for everyday wear. With inspiration from the world heritage of fine quality clothing, we use every aspect of our own native tradition.

From batik to traditional hand woven fabric, we continue working with our best craftsmen from many central creative and traditional textile in many place in Indonesia.

In Bluesville, We respect our color.

Natural Dye

Natural dyes are colorants extracted from plants, mineral, or animal. The most common source of natural dyes comes from various parts of exotic plants. Each plant has its own unique colors and vibe that can not be replicated by synthetic dye. This is what our ancestor use on their fabrics, their arts, and many aspect of their life back in the good ol’ days.

Bluesville is lucky enough to be born in Indonesia, where the land is graced by constant sunshine and the home of thousands of various plant species. This makes a perfect combination for natural dye exploration. We gather our sources for dyeing from various places around Indonesia such as Java, Sumba, Kalimantan, and of course our own backyard.

It is also common that local fruit merchants or vegetable merchants would drop their bad products or wastes to our workshop so we can use it as dye source. One can see a pile of onion skins, dogfruit or jengkol (Archidendron pauciflorum) skins, rancid mangosteen, wood ash from mills, and many more in our workshop.

see our natural colors

Of Natural Indigo

Indigo is one such commodity, cropping up in many fields of science and the arts of many fields and industries. Its unique production methods with their spiritual associations, and the beauty of the colours produced on a wide range of textiles, have lent an aura of mystique which still lingers on today.

Most textile experts have focused their attention on weaving, embroidery and design, even though colour is usally first thing to strike the eye, and is the most definable and dominating aspect of a textile's beauty, the means of producing colour and creating coloured fibres have often been taken for granted.

No other dyestuff has been valued by mankind so widely and for so long. One of the world's oldest dyes, it remains the last natural dye used in places that have embraced synthetic dyes for every other colour.

Like the rainbow in which it features, indigo has always formed an arc across societies in every direction and continues to do so today. Blue jeans, whose colour is of Eastern origin, have taken indigo from the West back into the East, linking cultures and generations.

Dyeing Process

Everything is done by hand. From the chopping of dye stuff, extraction, mordanting and dyeing itself is done by hand thanks to our admiration of traditional technique.

Successful dyeing also depends on the weather condition and water condition. A little change in these variables can lead to a various shades of color output. This is a delicate and labor intensive process. There is no identical product in natural dyeing process as a result, and each garment is unique in its own way.

Traditional Weaving

We spend some amount of time in developing our own fabric traditionally, to stay true to our traditional concept by cooperating with our local artisan. Our artisan has more than 60+ years in weaving beautiful handmade fabric in an old fashion traditional loom and still preserve the traditional way of weaving fabric until this present day.