To Montreal with love..

My Husband and I took my first trip to Montreal, his second. It is a beautiful city with wonderful food culture and amazing people. We were also very fortunate to catch the Jean Paul Gaultier show at the Fine Arts Museum. The mannequin had people's faces projected on them which displayed various emotions. I was deeply moved by some of the Mongolian inspired costumes- the color, the fabrics were very diverse and unexpected. Truly a creative genius!

Next stop the Bio Dome. The nationals stadium was converted to an environment education site. They had put up little sections to educate the vegetation and animals of particular regions- like the amazon rain forest, the Appalachian mountains etc. Even the temperature of the room changed keeping true to the region. The rain forest was warm and humid, the Appalachian cool with slight breeze, Impressive to say the least!

We ended our day at the Jazz Festival. Free music and plenty of beer to go around. Perfect ending to a wonderful beginning.

Overall I was really inspired to create some new styles for a.d.o. Love to hear about your summer trip..
xoxo,
anjelika

All things Turmeric!

People always ask me if I dye fabrics for my clothing line. The answer is both yes and no. When thinking about next season for a.d.o, I do small dye experiments in my studio to figure out what would work best. As we are already in works for Spring/ Summer 12 season (gosh!), I found this wonderful light weight organic jersey from a mill in LA. I needed to find out if this jersey would take color well from natural ingredients or not. So here begins my experiment..
I always have turmeric( for cooking curry) in my pantry. So I dyed a small swatch with turmeric and to check the fabric. Here's is my formula:
-Boil one table spoon of turmeric with 5 cups of water. 
-Let it simmer for 30 mins to cook the turmeric. 
-Wash swatch thoroughly with cold water to remove any impurities. -Dip the wet swatch in curry broth and let it simmer in very low heat for 20-30 mins. 
-Remove swatch from curry broth and rinse in cold water to remove excess dye stuff. 
-Hang to dry. 
-After the swatch has dried, check the swatch for imperfections.
a. Are there any uneven spots on the swatch?
b. Do you like the intensity of the color?


I was immensely happy with this fabric, it took color beautifully. We are using this for S/S 12! Have you experimented with natural dyeing?