Maybe you can hold the colour of trees in thread or place the imprint of a winter’s morning chill in fabric.

Ira Bekker, a botanical dyeing and printing creative, hasn’t stopped wondering (also wandering) about how nature’s hues of perfect uncertainty might come to colour yarns and natural textiles.

Ira calls herself the Botanical Nomad. Since leaving Joburg in 2017 she has travelled across the country, following biomes – an area classified according to the species that live in that location – rather than boundaries. She stops in places where the plants, the rocks, the light, the water and the earth are reasons to pause. There she can set up a semi-permanent base and borrow form whatever natural environment she finds herself in to colour and pigment.

“Moving around to different place gives me quite a lot of access to plants in the many different biomes we have in South Africa, some of them are vast and other occur in the smallest areas,” she says.

Ira adds that the richness of diversity is found everywhere from intact indigenous forest as well as from a heritage of plants that found their way to the South African shores through the movements and migrations of peoples over centuries.

When I arrive in a new area I first go for some walks with the local people to meet the trees and other plants

“When I arrive in a new area I first go for some walks with the local people to meet the trees and other plants, collect samples of dry bark, seedpods, wood from fallen trees and anything else that intrigues,” she says.

With her harvest of natural bounty she sets up a simple studio in which processes like boiling, pressing and drying begin. If she’s working with stones or soil, she might grind these into fine powders. She coaxes from them natural tannins and pigment.

There are colours rich in yellows and browns. She may add rust and water to turn the palette into blues, greens and greys. Then she tests then in various combinations on natural fabrics ranging from silk and linen to wool and cotton to see how dyes may take and hold.

“I love the research and the exploration but it all remains a very organic process for me. It’s experiential, I’m learning all the time and adapting.”

I’ve always gravitated to nature and understood that humans are part of an ecosystem which means we are meant to be connected

“I’ve always gravitated to nature and understood that humans are part of an ecosystem which means we are meant to be connected, meant to create and co-create,” she says.

Ira’s work is known through her social media channels. Many more people though know her through experiencing her workshops or chatting to her at the country markets where she might have a bespoke range on sale or when she’s sharing stories and technique ideas.

She believes interest in natural dyeing is picking up momentum. More people recognise that the world is struggling with an addiction of over-consumption and over-possession. The horror burdens of chemicals, pollutions and waste on the planet are plain to witness.

Ira was the child rescuing birds and planting things in her own nursery, holding the dream to grow up to be a hunter-gatherer, she would tell her mother. She also jokes that she was upcycling, thrifting and making her own clothes “long before it became a thing”.

“People are thinking differently; I see it when people come to my workshops. It’s an eye opener for them that they can dye using plants in their backyard. It’s a delight when they realise they do have control over the colours of their clothes and a choice to not use chemical dyes,” she says.

Ira, as the nomad, carries little with her as she moves from place to place. She says that her car is her mobile home, studio and office. But it’s a reminder to her about how little her identity is tied to the material, and that she is a happy outsider also to how society might frame aspiration or success.

“You can imagine how little I care about fashion or standards of fashion aesthetics. I also struggle when people want to talk to me about ramping up my production for commercial supply or ask whether I can make the colours brighter or more replicable,” she says.

Instead, she’s about working slower, more artisanally and guided by what nature offers, rather than insatiable demand. Her work is about disrupting the way people understand the origin stories of their clothes and reframing what healthier supply chain relationships could look like.

“When you’ve raised a sheep, shorn its coat, and turned its hair into wool, you respect a jersey that’s made from that wool in a whole different way. I am interested in that journey of how these things are made and how different suppliers like me might be able to learn and also bring that shift to the fashion and textile industries,” Ira says.

It’s a change that starts with a pause. It’s back to her places of wildness and solitude. An unhurried walk to pick up leaves, bark and seedpods. And then to return with handfuls of abundance, colour and possibility.

 

• Images supplied by Ira Bekker and by Samantha Reinders
• Ira Bekker won the Twyg’s Farm-to-Fashion Sustainable Fashion Award in 2023