Ombre is the New Tie Dye

By Olivia Cueva

What’s the New What? I say Ombre is the New Tie-dye.

Listen to the audio here!

Woahhh dude, Tie-dye is back …But this time high-end designers are in the mix trying to make sure that tie-dye’s trip back to public consciousness isn’t a bad one. They’ve even given it chi chi name, Ombre.

TRACI (on tape)
Really the definition of Ombre means to shade, to dip dye.

OLIVIA
That’s Traci Peace, director of a youth fashion program called Visions of La Moda.

TRACI (on tape)
The color graduates from light to dark basically. It could be a sky blue on top and as it goes down, down, down, …

OLIVIA
It becomes a darker blue – like a navy. Tracy Peace got wind of the new tie-dye look from the spring and summer collections at New York Fashion Week. It was a bit of a shock.

TRACI (on tape)
Unless you’re going to a Grateful Dead concert, I just would not wear tie-dye of the 1960’s.

OLIVIA
Where I grew up…Berkeley, California…you don’t have to be on your way to a Dead show, to show off your old school tie-dye.

AX: Hey can you spare any leftovers for a hungry, drunk, fat kid…Spare a smile…Spare a smile… Please spare a smile…

OLIVIA
Here on Telegraph Avenue, the tie-dye epicenter of Berkeley, the sidewalks are lined with vendors selling incense, political T-shirts, jewelry, and of course tie-dye. I asked a tie-dye street vendor Sam Miksell what he thinks about this symbol of 60’s radicalism becoming high fashion…

SAM (on tape)
I‘ve never really heard of it but I imagine it’s just like normal tie-dye. I mean, there’s only so many ways you can dye a shirt multiple colors.

OLIVIA
Well that’s not what Ombre designers want you to think. And my friend Ariel Krizack agrees. She bought a green and white Ombre dress at Forever 21.

ARIEL (on tape)
Well this is definitely a cocktail dress that I bought. I don’t think it’s even comparable to something you would wear on Telegraph because you wouldn’t wear it to the same occasion whatsoever.

OLIVIA
And if you’re buying Ombre from high end designers like Stella McCartney and Marc Jacobs, it’s pricey too. I recently searched the Nordstrom website and most of the Ombre clothes sell for 200 dollars or more – even small items like clutch bags and neck ties. The kind of accessories that wouldn’t be worn by stoners, you dig?

Still, Traci Peace advises all you flower children not to pull out your old tie-dye.

TRACI (on tape)
I would very kindly say, give it away, throw it away. laughs

OLIVIA
My friend Ariel Krizack has a kinder recommendation for those ex-hippies: ARIEL: I think it’s hella tight when people make their own tie-dye. Bring tie-dye back.

OLIVIA
That’s right…my friends just started inviting me to tie-dying parties. GOOD OLD, DO it yourself tie dye….not three figure designer dip dye. But instead of sitting around with lava lamps and listening to Janis Joplin, we’ll be bumping Zion I and taking tie-dye from far out…to hella tight.