This season we’ve added an all-over tie-dye pattern to our much loved G-Pants and G-Shorts—ideal for giving a subtle dose of psychedelic flavor to the climbing wall or camp-site.
We probably don’t need to give you too much of a history lesson on tie-dye. As you’d expect from the name, this traditionally involves literally tying-off areas of fabric before adding the dye, creating a unique pattern in the process.
Used around the world for thousands of years as a low-tech way of adding color and pattern to clothing and fabric, it entered the counter-culture vernacular in the early 1960s, hand-in-hand with Eastern-influenced new age thinking and psychedelic substances.
Affordable and effective, the wild, free-form patterns were the perfect antithesis to the stiff shirts and ties of post-war America—echoing the bright swirling designs found on Fillmore Auditorium concert posters and the warped, fluorescent ink-soaked pages of magazines like Oz and IT.
Janis Joplin was a fan, as was author and legendary free-thinker Ken Kese, who put his own spin on the process by pouring enamel paint from model airplane kits into road-side ponds as he zig-zagged across the states with his Merry Pranksters. And that’s before we mention the Grateful Dead—with tie-dye tees a key part of the unofficial uniform for their ultra-dedicated fans, the Deadheads. Even now tie-dye vendors are a mainstay of the parking lot ‘Shakedown Streets’ that accompany jam-band gigs—with traders selling hand-dyed clothes to fund their way along the tour.
Whilst it’s usually found on t-shirts, we thought the thick organic cotton twill we use for our classic trousers and shorts made the perfect blank canvas for a bit of tie-dye experimentation. Although we could have gone full-on Haight-Ashbury with bright clashing colors, we decided to take a trip down a slightly different trail by using some particularly leafy green tones. Think of it like counter-culture camouflage—ideal for blending into the countryside or standing out in the city. And because of the nature of the dying process, no two pairs are the same.
The Tie-Dye Gramicci Pants and Shorts are available now.
