3SIXTEEN INDIGO DYE PROJECT

Words: Addison Hawkins

Images: Marcus Stabenow

Blue. Not just any blue, but indigo blue. Derived from a plant, reduced Indigo produces some of the most beautiful, vibrant blues you will ever see. Done right, there is no other color, no matter the filter used, that matches the richness, boldness and striking hue of indigo. Let’s not even get to the fading, when indigo, that is dip dyed onto a 3Sixteen heavy-weight tee begins to fade, it’s as if we are watching puffs of clouds appear, over time, through the deep blue sky of our shirts. That was our goal, deep vibrant indigo, shades of blue over beautiful cotton heavy-weight t-shirts. Indigo supplied from a plant, grown and harvested for our dying pleasure, mixed with love and time in vats as deep as the bottom of the ocean. That was our goal. But that was not what happened. Instead light blue, dare we say, baby blue, was the color of the day. Something in the indigo vats went wrong, not terribly wrong, but wrong none the less. All was not lost. What was lost in shade, friendship was made. What was loss in deepness of color, depth of connection was established. The event could not have turned out better in my mind, though the beauty of indigo did not attach itself to our shirts, the beauty of the process deepened our affinity for one another. 

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