OLOW x Joël Dagès

"Cosmos", a collection co-created with dye artist Joël Dagès in his workshop located in Narosse in Les Landes, where he also grows organic flowers.

Lecture en 4 minutes

A unique, handcrafted and ethical collaboration

new video

https://youtu.be/esz7pR4GER4

To round off this masterful and highly topical Fire & Joy spring-summer collection, we are delighted to present 'Cosmos', a set co-created with artist dyer Joel Dagès at his workshop in Narosse in the Landes region, where he also grows organic flowers.

The pattern on the 2 pieces is dyed naturally using the Japanese 'Shibori' folding technique. For many of you, this Tie and Dye will certainly echo the mythical and defining era of the Sixties.

Discover the collab

Can you introduce yourself in a few words?

My name is Joël Dages, and I'm the founder of the Busquet farm, an ecological farming association in Naros in the Landes region. It's a really multi-disciplinary place based around ecological crops. There's a small plot of 2,500 or 3,000 m2 dedicated to organic flowers, i.e. cut flowers that are then delivered in bouquets to restaurants, hotels and a few private individuals.

As well as farming, I'm also a dyer. I work a lot with natural dyes using pigments and flowers, in short, all natural things. I develop a lot of volumes with textiles, fabrics that I shape and that are dyed each time with these natural dyes.

Alongside all this, I run dyeing workshops. Days when I offer a natural dyeing activity. The aim is to show how pigment is transformed into a dye bath and how textiles can be dyed afterwards.

"It was a kind of epiphany to see this magnificent place, in the sunshine, in the peace and all this nature".

What inspires you?

I get a lot of my inspiration from nature. I felt I had a calling to nature, which I had known here all my childhood. When I came back to the farm I saw all this and I said to myself "this is it, I have to do something here". It was a kind of epiphany to see this magnificent place, in the sunshine, in the peace and all this nature.

What I'm really into at the moment are water worlds. I do a lot of colours with pigments and flowers, but I work a lot with indigo pigment because it's obviously very marine.

Can you tell us more about the technique?

We use the shibori technique a lot. It's a Japanese technique. It involves taking a white fabric and creating a gap in it, using elastic bands or string. You can also use pieces of wood held in place with pliers or cleats.

The idea is to prevent the dye from bleeding through when you plunge the fabric into the vat. So that's the idea: to create a gap and drawings thanks to these gaps.

What technique was used for the Cosmos ensemble?

For the collaboration with Olow, we decided together to use the recipe for the Maghreb vat, which is a very old vat. We chose it because it's super natural. To ferment it, we use date syrup: for hours you have to make a little decoction with these date bricks, which will make the sugar and start the fermentation.

The special thing about the Maghreb vat is that it's made with henna. We make a huge infusion with 2 kg of henna to which we add this date syrup and indigo. All this is mixed in a large 300 litre vat, into which I then come to make the panels according to the designs we have chosen together.