A Conversation on Natural Dyes and Local Production with Cecilia Raspanti.
- Written by Zoénie Deng-
As I pass by Waag’s TextileLab in Amsterdam, I often catch the earthy, herbal scent of simmering plants —an olfactory trace of natural dye experiments. Curious, I stop to chat with Cecilia Raspanti, the Lead of the TextileLab, whose work I’ve long admired. She tells me that many of these dye plants are not imported but harvested right here in Amsterdam—from parks, gardens, and even roadsides.
It makes me wonder: when we think of Amsterdam, do we think of plants? Do we realise the city is productive in producing natural dyes? I certainly didn’t—until I came across Local Color, a project in which Waag is a leading partner.
This initiative opened my eyes to the hidden potential of urban greenery and our deep entanglement with the materials we wear.
“Nobody’s naked… The skin is our largest organ,” Cecilia says, reminding me of something so obvious, yet often overlooked.
We all wear clothes. Textiles are our second skin—from the first cloth that wraps us at birth to the garments we are buried or cremated in. But most of us don’t stop to think about what’s in our clothes. Our skin, porous and exposed, is in constant contact with textiles—often made with synthetic dyes that can contain toxic substances. Even with regulations and certifications, fast fashion undermines these safeguards. Cheap production often means toxic production.
So why natural dyes? Why look to plants?
Cecilia explains that Local Color is more than a design project—it’s a research-based initiative exploring how cities like Amsterdam can support regenerative systems for textile production. The project investigates how local biochromes—dyes derived from plants, bacteria, and fungi—can be cultivated and used within a small-scale, circular textile economy.
“In Local Color and at TextileLab, we’re asking: can we grow fibres and dyes in the city? Can the green spaces between our buildings—parks, gardens, roadside verges—be part of a new textile system?” Cecilia says.
Her motivation is partly personal. “Around my house, the plants are decorative. They require little maintenance. But is that the relationship we want with green? What if our plants interacted with birds, bees, and simultaneously contributed to something essential—like textiles?”
In many urban areas, soil pollution or limited space makes food growing difficult. But dye plants offer another kind of productivity. Some, in fact, can help clean the environment—like those that absorb nitrogen, a pressing concern in the Netherlands today.
“If we plant dye crops strategically, they can absorb excess nitrogen while also yielding natural pigments. It’s not about scale—it’s about relationship. Between the city and its green spaces. Between people and their clothes,” Cecilia says.
This approach also ties to cultural restoration. Once, the Netherlands was a leader in natural dye production. Madder, for example, was cultivated in Zeeland for its rich reds until synthetic dyes took over in the 19th century . Cecilia points out that madder creates deeper, more complex hues because it contains multiple colorants—unlike synthetic dyes, which tend to be flat.
“Each place in the world has its own color palette, shaped by climate, soil, flora, and local dyeing practices. That knowledge—once common—is being lost,” she says.
But projects like Local Color aim to bring it back. Through research, co-creation with communities, and public workshops, they are reinvigorating and innovating not just color systems but cultural systems rooted in place.
Rethinking Pollution and Place
Synthetic dyes, invented accidentally in 1856, revolutionised the textile industry. They were cheap, fast, and vibrant—but came at an environmental cost. The dyeing process is water-intensive, toxic, and largely outsourced to places where labour and environmental laws are lax. The pollution affects us all. Water cycles globally. The clothing returns to Europe and beyond, and so do the consequences. Fast fashion clothing dyed synthetically often ends up in landfills, intoxicating the Earth more because it doesn’t decompose. (If you want to know more about circular textile, see another TextileLab project Reflow.)
Local Color presents a counter-narrative: a city-based, human-scale system that integrates environmental regeneration, artistic and craft practices, and community knowledges.
“We need enabling conditions to make this shift,” Cecilia notes. “These are explored, designed, and put into practice through the five lenses of the TextileLab research model: materials, processes, tools, systems and culture. But it starts with rethinking how we relate to the materials around us such as the plants, the bacteria, the minerals, and the fungi.”
Towards Plant Literacy
Since 1920, plant education has been part of Dutch schooling. There are 13 school gardens (schooltuinen) in Amsterdam. Children learn not just names, but how to identify, care for, and live with plants. Reviving that plant literacy is part of the long-term vision.
We cannot love something if we don’t know it. By reintroducing people to the dye plants growing in their neighborhoods, Local Color is reconnecting ecology, craft, and community. By reviving this knowledge, Local Color wants to foster deeper understanding, a sense of care, and respect toward the green. Come join the community to get acquainted with the plants, and even get your hands dirty with planting, harvesting the dye plants and even dyeing your own clothes, you will start seeing the unseen, the hidden colours of plants. It’s not just about dye—it’s about dye as a gateway to a more reciprocal way of living in the city.
You can find the Local Color stories, map of places and stakeholders, plant catalogue and other open-source resources on the website. Local Color is going to be part of the exhibition Chromatic Relations at Waag Futurelab during GLUE design festival, from 18 to 21 September 2025 and continues to open its doors from 23-28 September. Feel welcome!
1. See Dyer’s madder and kilns, https://www.zeeuwseankers.nl/en/stories/dyers-madder-and-kilns
