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Ebony dyeing
Ebony or Makrua (in Thai) is one of Thai traditional natural (vegetable) dyeing. Ebony dyeing creates elegant natural color ranged from light grey up to variety of brown shades and finally becoming in black.
Traditional Thai life with Ebony
The story of Thai ebony & its traditional dyeing
Ebony fruit's dyeing has its long history as a part
of northern Thai lifestyle. Particulaly in the old days,
northern Thai villagers have used ebony dyed working wear
for their daily farming work. The working wear consists of
one simple round neck with short sleeves shirt and a
fishermen styled pant.
(The photos show ebony tree & its fruit)
Ebony fruit
Generally the fruit is harvested once a year during
October until November. The harvested ones are preserved
in water in order to be able to continue dyeing for the
whole year. Different from other natural dyeing, ebony
dyeing quite strong to light expose.
Ebony black
Basically ebony dyeing process is similar to indigo's.
It is done in cold dyeing. Frequency of dyeing with the
sunlight expose makes color become darker and darker.
Turn to black
The photo shows a process of Thai silk fabric dyeing.
To make it become to natural black, it needs over 25
times of dyeing. In the past, Thai people's perception of
ebony (Makrua) color is natural black.