Tied & Dyed, fabric from Italy “Tie-dye has never been tasteful” according to New York Magazine. Or at least “American tie-dye ….. is too loud to be chic” But what about a Franco-Italian tie-dye? Replace gaudy designs and neon colours with subtle hues and renaissance-esque patterns. Combine this with a cutting-edge performance fabric for something singularly lightweight, fully wind stopping, water repelling and with an interior coating containing Aluminium ions to reflect body heat and add warmth. What if? Just north of Italy’s fashion capital, the Serates fabric factory is located a stone's throw from the idyllic Lake Como and only four hours from Nice. Perfect for a cross-border collaboration to turn a fabric fit for a super-model into one ready for chilly mornings or fast descents. In fact, tie-dye was not born in the 60s or 70s. From the Indian, the far Eastern and African continents, patterns have been created for centuries using 'resist-dying' : a technique used to create designs by restricting the run of the dye into the cloth. Japanese shibori sounds much more high-brow than psychedelic swirls. Since around 2016 the fashion world started to realise this and has refocused on the multifarious possibilities of combining different fabrics with tie-dye creativity. Run by the Ramundo family and with over 40 years’ experience in the market, the Serates factory serves a mix of elite brand clients from both the sports and the fashion world; Nike and Prada to name drop just two. If the corridors of power are where governmental decisions are taken, then these are the corridors of cloth where fashion trends are made. Their fabric production is completely in-house, literally one storey below the management offices. Each day they roll out three kilometres of the finest hand-crafted technical cloth money can buy. That means after four days there would be enough to line the road from the Café to Col d’Èze with fine Italian fabric….. Ripstop is one of the pillars of their performance range. Reinforcements of thicker threads woven into thinner cloth deliver strength without weight and provide aesthetics in a micro crosshatch pattern. Modern developments mean machines do the weaving work, but hands still do the quality control. Small defects at this stage can have big consequences so there are many eyes keeping a constant vigil on every metre that runs off the rollers. Once the roll is complete, the fun can begin. Colour creativity turns the technical into the desirable. Everyone knows about the primary colours. Some know about the Pantone Matching System. Few get to experiment, test and refine the eye to see every hue of every variation of every colour. It's at the heart of tie and dye. You could be forgiven for thinking it's child’s play. The same passion is there but to deliver products to meet the expectations of the world’s best brands, it takes precision and a methodology. Powder is weighed on scales, water temperature is regulated, notes are made, second, third and fourth tests are analysed meticulously before the final dye is made. The dye concentrate is diluted into vats of water that supply the jets over the conveyor belt of colour in the Serates factory. Do-it-yourself tie and dye methods involved exactly just that. In Como, the fabric is not tied but rather folded once and then laid nonchalantly on the conveyor belt. It's this deliberately random process that ensures that once the cutting is done, each individual piece will carry it's own unique tie-dye pattern. At the entrance jets apply the dye as the cloth passes underneath before heading into the oven section where the heat expands the fibres to allow the colour to penetrate them. At the exit point jets of water rinse the cloth and help spread the concentration of colour. Here again the fabric is man-handled, both to squeeze out the excess water and to inspect the results of the dye process before going into the industrial tumble dryer. With the cloth coloured, art meets science in the final performance treatment. Serates technicians blend a resin that provides both heat reflectivity and water repellency. Within the resin are aluminium ions that help reflect the body’s heat. The resin is applied with heat and transforms a fine fabric into a technical piece of performance. Back at Ramundo senior’s desk the prototypes are poured over in late afternoon light. Matteo explains how the brief was met from the original concept, Sebastiano asking how they performed each element, both of them admiring the run of colours achieved. Their eyes don’t meet but their hands are connected by the fabric that they hold together. Serates S.R.L., Via Civati, Albavilla, Province of Como, Italy