MATERIAL MASTERS ITA ENG

MATERIAL MASTERS ITA ENG

2 Colours story has deep roots Woad and Indigo are vegetal pigments among the most ancient in the human history Woad is the common name of Isatis Tinctoria, a plant belonging to Cruciferae's family Indigo is the common name of the Indigofera Tinctoria, a plant belonging to Leguminosae's family These vegetal pigments found ancient use already in the Neolithic period The ancient populations of Asia, as well as the ancient Egyptians, used them to dye clothes already in 2000 bc In Ancient Africa indigo has held and still holds a great use It is in fact still used by blue men, the Tuaregs From the Twelfth century the woad cultivation on a large scale in Europe, above all in Germany, France and Italy, has been an essential element of development for the agricultural economy In Italy the woad was worked and transformed mainly in the Tuscany and Marche regions More exotic the origin of Indigo, which was produced in India, the largest producer, and in the tropical regions of the Middle East and Africa From the second half of the Sixteenth Century Indigo started to replace woad, but not for intrinsic quality Authorities of many cities and countries curbed its import and use in order not to harm to the indigenous production of woad and the rich trade that resulted from it But over the decades, the exotic one supplanted the indigenous colour, as it turned out to be less expensive, and ended up by eliminating it quite completely the woad, the indigo, the history

3 The extraction of the blue colour from plants is not immediate It occurs through complex cycles from which the active dye, indigotin, is obtained, which is insoluble in water In order to dye it is necessary to proceed with the dyeing called vat In the ancient period the dress dyed with indigo was synonym of richness of the person; for the purposes more practical instead, the clothes dyed with this plant, presented insulating properties, no small feat when you consider the desert populations In fact, an indigo dyed cloth turns out to be five times more insulating (warm and cold) then an other tissue dyed with an other typology of dye In 1800 indigo was most widely used to dye a very rough and tough fabric, with which the pants for workers and mines were manufactured: the jeans production and uses

4 Unlike the Asiatic and African populations, Europeans did not use the indigo as tissue dyeing, but woad The blue extracted from woad represents the base and the chromatic inspiration of several paintings belonging to Piero della Francesca, while Leonardo da Vinci brought its recipe on the Codex Atlanticus During Renaissance woad found countless of uses in the arts Woad was used to decorate manuscripts, to paint watercolours and frescos and for decorations of terracotta The woad colour was used mainly from dyers for the colouring of wool and silks, used for the big Renaissance tapestries In fact, a lot of the survived medieval tapestries, like Bayeux's tapestry or the Apocalypse's one are woad dyed This colour that has survived the centuries, has remained unchanged, demonstrating its extraordinary solidity Over time, however, the use of these vegetal dyes ceased in favour of the use of synthetic pigments production and uses

5 Indigo and woad are part of the category of indigoid dyes The precursors of these pigments are found in the leaves and stems of the Indigofera Tincoria and Isatic Tinctoria plants The chemistry of the indigo pigment extraction and the complex process of preparation are similar for both plants From their extraction you obtain some dyes which are insoluble in water, which solubilise in alkaline environment, in leuco-dye form, still colourless and they penetrate in the fibres to be dyed The fibre then exposed to the air, pigments in blue, because of the strongly oxidative conditions Leather dyed with this process offers an inhomogeneous colouring, from the natural stone washed effect With the powders derived from plants you can obtain some mixtures, to be used for finishing the chemistry

6 The Indigo dyed or finished leathers that Okinawa uses, have, among further peculiarities, the one to be washable with an extraordinary dimensional stability and incomparable colour solidity without bleeding This characteristic is unique Leathers with similar performances don't exist in fact on the market Hydroki wet-white tanned and woad dyed is certified Oeko Tex Standard 100 class 1 It can be dry cleaned and domestic washed until the temperature of 40 C, maintaining an excellent dimensional stability, compared to similar leathers, without bleedings 40 Washoki, the special wet blue tanning, developed by Okinawa, is dry cleanable and domestic washable until the temperature of 60 C, with an excellent dimensional stability, without bleedings Okinawa's leathers worked in woad and indigo, collecting all the characteristics of denim fabric, turns in the beautiful Denim Leather 60 washable leather

7 Denim Leather can be realized on various types of leather, from: - bovine - ovine - goat - crossed (ovine/goat) The different types of leathers are designed to respond to the various exigencies of customers, as to materiality, for the use and style of the product to realize The dermis characteristic of the different species allows to obtain different effects although adopting the same production cycle The Denim Leathers in calf for example, lead very well to the realization of bags and the one in goat to the production of footwear leathers

8 The ageing process of the jeans, that fades to washing and wears over time acquiring the used look, became since the sixties, a pure aesthetic requirement, to be achieved industrially with better treatments and standardized over time, such as marbling, bleach whitening, stone wash a variant particularly appreciated that replicated the natural wear of the jeans in the areas with different consumption when they are gradually worn These bleaching effects were obtained by craftsmen, scratching with the pumice stone or sandpaper the part of the tissue corresponding to the bottom and knees, which effectively wear out more then the rest for an effect of friction, to move then on washings Now everything has evolved and computerized lasers are also used to obtain these effects, moving their ray to draw a preset design able to replicate any effect Stone and laser on jeans

9 In order to obtain the Denim Leather we transferred the classic treatments of denim on our leathers, both in wet-blue and wet-white tanning The dying in barrel with the woad-indigo already offers a natural stone wash effect, which can be then worked with transparent finishing to exalt this characteristic Otherwise the crusts can be finished with a mixture of woad or indigo, studied by Okinawa, which has got good solidity to the light and to washings In this way you create a ground blue-jeans, with variable intensities according to the requirements, which can be then removed with the techniques typically used on denim: stone wash, abrasion, printing, stone bleach, lasering The obtainable effects are different, they go from shiny to mat, new or washed and vintage In any case the Denim Leather so treated, assumes an appearance totally similar to the denim jeans but with the superb preciousness and the extraordinary hand of the leather Moreover, the leather offers even the possibility to have completely new and surprising effects Denim Leather's treatments and characteristics

10 The Denim Leather with its unique versatility can be used for the realization of products in different areas, like clothing, leather goods, footwear, furniture and many others With the Denim Leather we can obtain articles with an incomparable and completely new casual-elegant mix Denim Leather use

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