lossy plants with distinctive purple-green
stalks and knots of compact magenta flowers crowd
together in a sprawling field outside Nashville.
Mosquitos dart around in the Tennessee dawn as a
huge machine harvests a crop of natural indigo. It’s
a gathering not seen in this area for over a century, a
sign of how America, the natural home of denim, is
mapping out a sustainable mass-market future using
small-scale, artisanal ideas.
While the indigo plant was once prized by the
pharaohs, Japanese emperors and administrators of the
British Raj, by the early 20th century, the natural dye
it produces was supplanted by a synthetic substitute.
Synthetic indigo is now used to dye around a billion
pairs of jeans every year. But the presence of these
plants in Tennessee is not a mere function of nostalgia:
it’s inspired by contemporary concerns, says the woman
responsible. New York native and Cornell graduate
Sarah Bellos studied resource management before
becoming fascinated by the idea of using sustainable
plant dyes in the fashion industry. She launched Stony
Creek Colors in 2012 with the aim of re-establishing
large-scale use of natural indigo in the US.
The synthetic indigo used to dye nearly all of today’s
denim is derived from petroleum, involving unpleasant
precursors including cyanide and formaldehyde. Bellos
aims to move things forward by turning back the clock:
‘Creating valuable and useful chemicals from plants as
opposed to petroleum is way more sustainable. We’re
helping farmers and the soil.’
This huge field is farmed by Anson Woodall, one of
several farmers who supply Stony Creek. He explains
that ‘indigo is our new cash crop, whereas in 2016 it was
tobacco.’ Although medium-scale production of natural
indigo has continued in the Far East, these fields in
Tennessee – planted with Japanese indigo (persicaria
tinctoria), plus other varieties including indigofera
tinctoria, for research purposes – are part of a push to
turn plant-based indigo from a craft hobby to an
industrial concern in the US. ‘The real challenge is »G
FROM TOP TO BOTTOM,
INDIGO PLANTS GROWING
AT ANSON WOODALL’S FARM
IN TENNESSEE; THE INDIGO
PLANTS ARE LOADED ONTO
A TRUCK AND SOAKED
WITH WATER BEFORE BEING
TRANSFERRED TO THE
PROCESSING PLANT; STONY
CREEK COLORS FOUNDER
SARAH BELLOS IN FRONT OF
INDIGO REDUCTION TANKS
AT THE COMPANY’S FACTORY
IN SPRINGFIELD, TENNESSEE
OPPOSITE, NATURAL
INDIGO PIGMENTIntelligence