In January I pledged to buy just five new items of clothing over the course of the year. A wardrobe challenge called the “rule of five”, it was created by the British fashion editor Tiffanie Darke in response to an alarming report about the overconsumption of clothing.
I expected to find the challenge easy. But it turns out, despite how much I talk and write about responsible consumption, I’m not immune to that internal nudge telling me to buy a new dress for a friend’s wedding or a coat that’s appropriate for Sydney’s rain. But to satiate these desires in 2024 I have to be resourceful.
A few months ago I found myself reaching for a dressy black top I didn’t own. One I could wear to work events and parties. Something that was sexy enough for a date but that would look professional beneath a blazer.
The challenge encourages altering and mending garments you own. When I examined my wardrobe, I realised I’d accumulated several silk shirts and tops in pale colours that I wasn’t wearing often (in part because I’m clumsy and love pasta and red wine). Since natural fibres take dyes well, I considered which ones I could turn black.
One of the shirts had more than a few stains and had lost the lustre that makes cream silk such a pleasure to wear. Although I know that silk shows stains over time – especially sweat marks that might not be obvious for weeks or months – I had failed to launder the shirt frequently enough to prevent this.
I also found a light and dark grey digitally printed silk dress from my early 20s that I’d loved. It was sleeveless, cut on the bias and draped across the body and high across the neck. I’m now 36 and it’s too short and sheer for me. But, thanks to the way bias cuts move, I can wear it as a top. The silk had aged in places, turning the grey yellow and brown.
I’ve overdyed cotton garments at home before using a packet dye and the washing machine. But dyeing fabric requires specific temperatures and I was worried I’d damage the silk if I tried to do it myself. So I turned to a professional dyeing service in Sydney called Cullachange that offers custom and batch dyeing. Although it’s possible to go into the store in Surry Hills, I requested a pack be sent in the mail, then filled out a form and posted the garments back with the prepaid satchel provided.
The cost varies depending on how complicated the construction of each item is and gets cheaper when items are dyed in bulk. Dyeing one shirt costs $55; dyeing a two to four costs $45 each. A short, unlined dress, like my soon-to-be top, costs $79.
You can buy new shirts and dresses for less than this, so I understand balking at the expense. But it’s near impossible to find new silk garments so beautifully constructed at these prices. When I bought them, both the shirt and dress cost more than $400. They were investment pieces, so I considered paying to have them refreshed worthwhile and, since I’m not buying many new clothes this year, it felt good to invest that money in a local business and the repair economy instead.
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About a week after I’d posted the items I received the first of several calls to discuss the order. Since different fabrics react to dyes in different ways, the team at Cullachange insist on talking to clients so they can do their best to marry expectations with the results. Since it’s hard to predict how every garment will take dye, they offer a redyeing service free of charge.
The dress was more than 10 years old so I wasn’t concerned about something going wrong but the Cullachange team wanted to be sure I was aware of the risks – silk can become brittle and fragile as it ages and the dyeing process is not always gentle. In the case of the shirt, they advised that it was likely the stitching was polyester (most stitching is) and wouldn’t take the dye as well as the silk, so the resulting black shirt would have white contrast stitching. This wasn’t an issue for the dress, as its stitching was already black.
I didn’t anticipate the level of consultation offered by Cullachange, which meant the process took longer than I expected. Once garments have been dyed, they also need to be dry-cleaned or washed, which extends the time before an item is ready to wear. It was exactly a month between my initial consultation and the date the garments were posted back to me.
The results were a perfect dark solid black. The dress took the dye with more intensity because it is sheer and has less weight than the shirt, meaning more dye relative to the surface area. The shirt’s stitching was still white, leaving a pretty contrast to the black along each of the seams, including the collar and the buttonholes. Both garments felt slightly smaller, as though the black dye had caused them to shrink slightly, but the texture of the silk remained the same.
I put the black shirt on immediately with a black skirt suit. That afternoon I had a photoshoot (a rare thing) and then a dinner afterwards and I knew that the black silk would wear well across the two events.
Both garments are such a deeply satisfying and even shade of black they feel practically new, almost as though I’ve hacked the “rule of five” challenge.