Victoria and Albert Museum

ao textiles showcase

Red, extracted from the dye plant madder, was the inspiration of our working installation ‘touche de rouge’ at the Victoria & Albert Museum during London Design Week 2013.

Madder is one of the classic natural dye plants, producing reliable colourfast colour for textiles. Its rich and varied colour palette,ranging from subtle pinks to vibrant oranges and rich russet reds is a favourite dye plant for us. At touche de rouge, ao textiles showcased a new fabric, MINERAL, created in collaboration with Gainsborough. MINERAL, a hand marbled design created by ao textiles, was realised using skeins hank dyed with madder for the jacquard weave.

The installation celebrated sustainability, alongside the organic natural dyes and textiles, we created a space using recycled newspapers left over from marbling.