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Christiana & Paolina: Textile dyeing
Textile dyer Christiana Vardakou based in Greece & German fellow Paolina Bumeder
Greek textile designer Christiana is specialised in natural dyeing and traditional weaving. After she graduated in Textile Design from the Chelsea College of Arts, Christiana travelled for four months through South East Asia. She mostly dyes using plants from her garden in Athens or from Mani, south Peloponnese.
After graduating from school, Paolina did a three year apprenticeship in men’s tailoring at Brandstetter & Straub in Berlin. The emerging German talent went on to explore costume and stage design in various internships and recently completed a bachelor’s in textile design at Kunsthochschule Weissensee.
Ίχνη: Tracing Nature
This room divider crafted in silk from Soufli – known as Greece’s ‘town of silk’ – pays tribute to Greek nature, responsible design and the timeless elegance of Art Deco. Using the eco-print technique, master textile dyer Christiana and fellow Paolina carefully arranged locally foraged leaves and flowers on the silk, before tightly bundling the fabric and steaming it to extract the natural pigments and tannins. In this way, the organic shapes, natural tones and delicate details of the foliage were transferred onto the silk, creating patterns that evoke Art Deco-style floral wallpapers.
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