In the spring of 2024, Roua Alhalabi of Roua Atelier arrived at the Fashion Farm in Welsum with woad seeds. During conversations about plants, pigments and historical textile knowledge, the idea emerged to grow this dye plant together on the farm, among the vegetables in the organic garden. The initiative became one of the most significant experiments at the Fashion Farm, founded in 2023 by Joline Jolink, who moved from Rotterdam to a farm in the province of Overijssel to experiment with textile raw materials that can be grown and processed on Dutch soil.
When you observe a field of woad, the blue colour does not appear, but rather dark green leaves. However, for centuries this plant was the main source of blue in Europe before the arrival of synthetic dyes. The colour is not visible in the leaf; the blue remains hidden and is only released through a process that includes harvesting, fermentation, oxidation and preparation of a dye bath. In the summer of 2024, under the supervision of Alhalabi, the Fashion Farm team harvested the woad, although some of the plants were devoured by cabbage white caterpillars and another disappeared during a slug infestation in the wet spring.
The pigment is extracted from the leaves through a process that was once common knowledge but today is practised by very few people. When a fabric is dipped in the dye bath and removed, it is not yet blue; only when it comes into contact with oxygen does the colour slowly begin to develop. The Fashion Farm collaborated with Reina Ovinge of The Knitwit Stable to combine Dutch wool with home-produced indigo, wondering what would happen by bringing together a raw material barely used in the Netherlands with a colour grown in Dutch soil.
In the summer of 2024, a design called Gertrude was developed, in honour of a favourite hen on the farm. The jerseys were knitted in limited edition at The Knitwit Stable's mini-factory in Baambrugge. When they arrived in Welsum in autumn, the dyeing began: one by one, the jerseys were dipped in the dye bath to create a colour gradient that showed the different tones of the pigment. The process proved to be intensive manual work that required attention, time and repetition, generating a deeper connection with the raw materials, the landscape and the people who had contributed.
When Gertrude was launched in October 2024, the jersey represented more than just a wool garment with a particular blue gradient. It demonstrated what is possible when knowledge, craftsmanship, agriculture and design come together, according to the Fashion Farm. The design illustrated the value of understanding where materials and colours come from, and how their beauty possesses a depth that truly moves us.