Blueprint

Blue printing is an ancient and difficult process of printing on fabric. Central European women wore blue fabric as casual dress wear but later it became considered traditional folklore costume and is most typical for the areas of south Moravia and Slovakia. If you visit a festival or a village today you can still see some of the original designs.

But it all started in India and more specifically with Indigo During the 16th century fashion was limited due to poverty, religion, wars and the resources which Europeans had at hand. But by the 17th century indigo printing on textiles was popular and available to the average citizen. It started when the Dutch painter Peter Coecke, who had traveled the orient extensively, returned with not only

indigo but the technique of combining indigo and wax in a method which allowed textiles to acquire color without running after washing.

The first “forms” were usually small, simple, one color/one design blocks for printing on textiles. Soon they became more elaborate, larger and designed for layered multi colored printing. The technique was protected and passed down from father to son as a family know how and secretive. Today, due to the industrial revolution, but also in no small part to the communist tendency for centralized production, there are only a handful of people who know the art.