Book Review: Dyeing for Entertainment by Erin Carignan

 I couldn't be more enthusiastic about the forthcoming new book with full-color photos/illustrations by Erin Carignan, Dyeing for Entertainment: Dyeing, Painting, Breakdown, & Special Effects for Costumes.

For all that Deb Dryden's brilliant seminal work, Fabric Painting and Dyeing for the Theatre, is a wonderful reference, it's also 30 years old at this point. The world has changed, OSHA regulations have changed, products have been discontinued and new ones introduced, not to mention the internet exists now and we can have a Pantone app on our mobile phone. Dryden has written the foreword to this new text, effectively passing the torch to costume dyers of the new millennium.

No lie tho, I've been finagling educational reprints of Dryden's OOP text because it remained the best (only) reference that specifically addressed the intersection of textile dyeing and costume production for entertainment. I have a whole library of books in my dye studio of newer, up-to-date references about different classes of dye for use on different fibers, mixing recipes, surface design techniques, etc. But none of those newer books approach dyeing through the lens of costume production, which brings its own set of constraints, requirements, and needs.

Right out of the gate, Carignan's got my attention with an opening chapter on dyeroom setup and my personal favorite topic, safe work practice. She covers color theory (how it applied to textile dyeing, but also how color behaves in the context of stage performance where lighting design can impact how the audience perceives color), fiber science, classes of dyestuffs, swatching, Testfabric guides, and color removal processes. She devotes an entire chapter to changing the color of leather with both dyes and paints. And honestly, with that, she's covered 90+% of what I've needed to know and do as a dyer for performance costumes.

But, that's only half the book. The remaining chapters cover surface design methods like screenprinting, stencils, painting with dye pastes, resists, devoré, and more. Plus there's a whole chapter on distresing/ageing/weathering/breakdown, and another on blood effects. (Excellent chapters on the kinds of fun projects that come along maybe once a season unless you run a theatrical dye/paint studio like Hochi Asiatico.) And the book might be worth the cost of purchase for the Appendices alone: a bibliography, a chart for stain removal, and 5 different printable swatch/recipe sheets from various dye studios. [1]

Foam-stadium-finger thumbs-up for this title! I'm thrilled it's out in plenty of time to adopt it as the new required text for my next dye class (Spring 2025). This title comes out December 19, 2023, after which pre-orders will ship directly from the publisher (Routledge). [2] Amazon pre-orders are apparently not shipping till the new year.

[1] For real, I've collected copies of the swatch record sheets at every shop I've worked at that had a dye studio. They're all slightly different and it's a good idea to create your own to be what you ultimately need it to be given the type of dye studio you're running. And, this appendix makes it convenient to see how several different places format them and what info they track!

[2] Full disclosure: I'm an author of a Routledge book, A History of the Theatre Costume Business: Creators of Character. This review was not solicited--I'm just super-excited this book exists.