BY CHRIS ALEX
DYEING cloths can sometimes be a daunting task for any individual, however, that’s not the case for local civil engineer, Luis Rani who finds passion in transforming plain clothing into something fashionable to wear.
SUNDAY ISLES journalist, Chris Alex talks with a 30-year-old civil engineer, Luis Rani from the Western province of the Solomon Islands who shares his passion and experience in the art of tie-dye at home, we believe his story might capture the attention of ordinary Solomon Islanders.
Tie-dye is a technique of coloring cloth that involves folding, twisting, and scrunching the fabric and then tying it tightly with string or rubber bands. Then, you dip the fabric in dye. The areas that are twisted and tied will receive little to no dye.
“The traditional art of cloth dye was first introduced to me by my parents at a very young age when growing up. I often find it quite fascinating to practically learn from their work when dying lavalava with attractive colors and patterns. I believe this is when I started to develop my passion for the art of cloth dye.
“I later discovered a new modern approach to traditional style cloth dye called the tie-dye.
“I often get connected to social media tutorials (on the internet) just to get new creative techniques on the different styles of tie-dye and mostly improve from what I had already been passionate about over the past years,” Luis told SUNDAY ISLES.
His passion for the art of tie-dye led him to create an online business label called K-Light Tie Dyes in 2020, which specializes in promoting the sales and marketing of his tie-dye clothing products at affordable prices.
Nowadays, since Luis is a full-time employed civil engineer currently working on a project at the Honiara International Airport, he often spends his free time over the weekends dying plain clothes from t-shirts to collared shirts (long and short sleeves), bedding sheets, etc.
He also plans to expand his small business in the future.
Meanwhile, Luis expressed his disappointment by stressing that it’s often annoying to have the negative perception that the art of cloth dyeing is a women’s work since its good for men too.
He added that men have always played critical roles in women’s roles in the society
“I think the art of dyeing clothes is not only for women, at the end of the day it’s all about gender, creativity, interest, and passion.
“I often come across people online that refer to or thought that I am a woman and I believe that such a traditional attitude needs to stop.
“But I think there is still a long way to go, and we’ll only get there by drawing more men and women into the conversation by saying to them that passion, creativity, and the love for a particular art is what makes the difference, and always put that in your mind that the art of cloth dye is both female and male,” he stressed.
