Talking about Natural Dyes - Art + Fashion
From the studio No.43
FASHION DECLARES! hosts Crafting Fashion Futures, a regenerative fashion futures event in the beautiful 1920’s Conway Hall in King’s Cross on 17th September 2025. It’s a great start to London Fashion Week and I’ll be showcasing a collaboration with Safia Minney - her organic cotton fabric, my design and natural dyed, painted dress. Safia founded People Tree, a pioneering sustainable and Fair Trade fashion label and Fashion Declares.
NEXT UP - DATE FOR YOUR DIARY
Crafting Fashion Futures with Fashion Declares!
18th September, Conway Hall King’s X.
It's a symposium on regenerative fashion futures.
I'll be there.
I’ll be showcasing a collaboration with Safia Minney MBE - her artisan made, organic cotton fabric, my design and natural dyed, painted dress. She sent me 4m metres of the fabric and the dress will go in the entrance to Conway Hall.
It's beautiful fabric, so fluid and at the same time, sculptural.
Behind the scenes I've been busy draping, pattern cutting and natural dyeing the dress. One of the details I'm using is the selvedge. I do love a bit of selvedge! Next I'll be sewing on some little red corozo nut buttons and painting on some of my signature lines to finish off.
Draping the fabric and sewing together before dyeing with plant extracts.
Why are we curating 'Crafting Fashion Futures' symposium?
"Crafting of textiles and clothing is key to slowing down extraction, promoting decent livelihoods, redistributing wealth and building new narratives. Business is beginning to wake up to the opportunities of post-growth thinking and practice - so we’re looking forward to a radical symposium at Crafting Fashion Futures on the first day of LFW" - Safia Minney, MBE
The event celebrates the 1st day of London Fashion Week & the 1st ever London Textile Month at this fabulous event, at the iconic Conway Hall.
Kicking off the week, this landmark one-day gathering brings together over 20 pioneering voices in regenerative fashion, craft, and ethical textiles for a day of fireside chats, panels, brand pop-ups, and short films.
Organised by Safia Minney (founder of Fashion Declares, People Tree, and Indilisi) and co-curated with Polly Leonard, founder of Selvedge Magazine, the event features leading designers, makers, and thinkers shaping a just and sustainable future for fashion.
In-Person Tickets include a delicious plant-based lunch, and Online Tickets will receive a full recording of the event.
You can join in-person or online and there is an evening event too, with a panel discussion and music.
Fashion Declares! say,
’We’ll be hearing from 20 inspiring international craft thought leaders and pioneers covering the intersection between craft, sustainability, culture and social justice.
From organic textiles, handweaving, natural dying and hand embroidery to design, business and fair livelihoods, we believe that craft can be a key part of building a more positive future for people and planet. Each one of you is holding parts of a potential new narrative in which craft and making can help to create the shift towards a well-being economy and a more just society. We want to invite you to be part of this watershed event!
Crafted Fashion Futures is curated by Safia Minney, MBE, a half-Mauritian, half-Swiss Brit known for founding the slow fashion brand People Tree. Safia has dedicated her life to developing and promoting organic cotton and textile crafts.
Together with Fashion Declares, and her tiny new craft brand Indilisi [in-dill-iss-ee], Safia is proud to partner with Selvedge magazine on the first day of London Fashion Week to bring you an incredible event at Conway Hall, London with pioneers and craftspeople from India, Bangladesh, Kenya and the UK.’
If you go to this event, please be sure to say hi.
Thank you for following my journey,
My best,
Sarah x
From the studio No.42
It's July and the dye garden is bursting with fecundity - of both plants and ideas.
Here’s a very short video of part of the regenerative natural dye, food and medicine garden, it forms a part of the forest garden.
It's July and the dye garden is bursting with fecundity - of both plants and ideas.
Here’s a very short video of part of the regenerative natural dye, food and medicine garden, it forms a part of the forest garden.
Do you see it as chaotic and overgrown?
Or ABUNDANT?
This garden is full of flora and fauna. Full of dye, medicine and food plants. Here is a list of some of the plants in the video:
Budlia - colour
Rosa rugosa - food, medicine
Fennel - food, medicine, colour
Marshmallow - medicine
Sweet cicily - food
Tansy - colour, medicine
Mugwort - medicine
Elecampane - medicine
Evening primrose - food, medicine
Jostaberry - food
Comfrey - colour, food, medicine
Willow - food
Crab apple - food
It also has deep mineral accumulators and nitrogen fixers. Creating the edge of a forest garden. An edible forest.
DATE FOR YOUR DIARY! - FASHION SHOW 17th AUGUST
And a little head’s up. SARAH POLAND is taking part in a fashion show during Aberjazz Jazz n Blues Festival 2025, at the beautiful venue Ffwrn in Fishguard, Pembrokeshire.
There will be cheese and wine tastings with Feral Pig Wine , DJ’s spinning vinyl and fashion shows from SARAH POLAND, and Jolette Le Roux.
I’ll send more about tickets and details next week when I get the poster.
And there are so many more events to come to let you know about…LONDON, BRIGHTON, OXFORD.
Thank you for following my journey,
My best,
Sarah x
STUDIO JOURNAL 8
From newsletter 27th March.
Vignette (study), 34.5 x 61cm. Botanical inks on gesso panel 2022
I’ve got some grreat news.
After a lengthy and meticulous application for an Arts Council Wales grant, I have now received an email saying that my application has been successful. Hurrah!!
The grant is to create a solo exhibition to be shown at Elysium Gallery in Swansea in 2023. It is a large space and I have lots of ideas. I plan to have two painting installations, one with 3-Dimensional work as well as individual paintings and diptychs. The grant will enable me to commission and collaborate with other creatives as well. For example, I’ll be able to get some professional photography of my work a video documenting my process and a sound commission for an installation. It is very exciting and lots of work to do.
More information about the project will be unveiled over time. The exact date is yet to be confirmed with the gallery, I really hope you will be able to come for the opening night or during opening hours of exhibition. It will of course also be documented online, for those who can’t make it.
Oak gall ink and gesso on paper.
I’ve made a start by making some small studies on gessoed paper, board and panel and although when I start working on a series I don’t look at anyone else’s work, I’m currently re-reading books ‘In Praise Of Painting’ by Ian MacKeever RA, ‘Agnes Martin’ by Frances Morris and Tiffany Bell, ‘Resistance & Persistence Selected Writings by Sean Scully. I’m thinking I’ll look out my book of Bridget Riley’s writings, she writes with such insight on her own work and of other artists’.
I’ve also been watching videos on Youtube of Brice Marden talking about his work. There’s such an incredible archive online.
Studio table
STUDIO JOURNAL 5
From 6th February 2022 newsletter.
I came across this quote/idea the other day on the word impossible, I thought I’d share it with you.
It changes it completely.
“Impossible” has a meaning that imposes huge limitations. But if we split it into two words, it changes that limitation into opportunity. One that we have power over because … I’m Possible.
Impossible Is Nothing.