Finishes

Choosing quality over quantity

After the fabric is dyed, it may undergo a finish to seal in the color and enhance its look and feel. Coating it with water-buffalo glue, a solution made by boiling the animal’s dried skin in water, makes the fabric stiffer and heavier.

The fabric is then hand-pounded with a large wooden mallet to seal the indigo crystals into the fibers and break them down to make them softer. This labor-intensive process takes 1 or 2 days of pounding, folding and flipping the fabric around until all sides are flattened evenly. If water-buffalo blue was used, the pounding will produce a matte sheen on the fabric if it is a flat weave. If it has woven traditional patterns, like the diamond, then the shapes will raise up like an embossment and become more pronounced. 

Egg-white is an alternative to the water buffalo glue and provides a shiny and water-resistant finish without adding weight. The first time I witnessed the Miao people in Biasha village using a chicken feather to apply the egg white to the fabric, it seemed so unusual for me. As an American, I was so used to being a consumer and buying things that my first instinct would have been to buy a paintbrush from an art store. But in the countryside, there were no stores to be found. A a chicken feather, after all, was free and could be found in one’s backyard. The concept that one could simply use whatever was readily available and did not cost anything was a real novelty for me. 

Stone calendaring can also create a smooth and shiny finish on cotton fabric. In the southern area of Guizhou in Nanlong village (?), the Buyi people rub a smooth stone, just large enough to be held with two hands, drags across the surface, back and forth several times, on the dark indigo-dyed fish-eye patterned fabric (confirm name of fabric). The result is a leather-like hand that makes the surface look like snakeskin, and is used as the base for their traditional jackets. The stone is passed down many generations within a family and, through its use over many decades, becomes smooth like jade on all sides. While their heirloom fabric-rubbing stone was too precious for them to sell, they told me I could find my own stone in the nearby river. I could find my perfect stone and pass it down one day to my grandkids in the future. Again, it wouldn’t cost me anything, and it felt meaningful. I would find my very own stone for making fabric. 

It was becoming obvious that the common thread throughout Guizhou was to use whatever was locally available in the natural environment. There was no need to buy anything from a store. If you needed something, just make it! Not only did this philosophy work in the countryside, this simplicity entered into my daily life in New York. Instead of buying things, I first looked in my home to see what could be used as an easy alternative. I felt more empowered to create my own experiences. By making something instead of buying it, I would have exactly what I needed for the exact that it required.  I felt more in control of the world around me because I was creating it myself.

As an American, this was certainly a novel concept for me since I was used to being buy any product, service, experience I wanted. This was even more extreme in New York, where “homemade” things are purchased from a store, farmer’s market, or restaurant where, other people make it for you — certainly not something you waste your precious city time doing yourself.  

Going back to design basics meant going back to lifestyle basics, dealing with people, and how I approached the world around me. Everything had to be stripped down to the essentials. Instead of searching all over the internet to buy the perfect item in a sea of choices, I adopted a new philosophy: work with what you have, and make it stronger, better. Make the things around you work for what you need to do. There is often no need to buy new things. Through your own creative effort, you can make whatever you desire from the things you already have.

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Add that waterproof DWR finishes in outerwear is carcinogenic

Chemicals when dumped into rivers creates a toxic soup that is harmful to wildlife, the soil, and drinking water