A versatile range of natural dyes developed on milk protein-based yarns in collaboration between designer Shahar Livne and Dyer Roua AlHalabi, made from materials driven from animals such as blood, collagen, and milk, minerals such as hematite and aluminium, plant parts such as oak apple and flowers and roots of the Rubia tinctorum plant; together, the materials create a rich variety of colours through alchemical reactions. The project was inspired by animal products such as urine, feces, and blood to “animalize”* in old recipes for fabric and leather dying (used in the complex recipe for turkey red and the recipe for oxblood-colored leather). and the invention of milk protein fibres in the 50s as a solution for scarcity.

*Animalizing is a term taken from alchemy and applied in creating new substances with “livingness”.