Indigo: A Blue to Dye For

I recently went to an exhibition in Brighton called 'Indigo: A Blue to Dye For' which displayed textiles from all over the world that had been dyed in some way with indigo. Indigo dye is one of the oldest and most widely used dyes in the world. The exhibition included arts, crafts and design as well as fashion and the pieces had come from places including Africa, Europe, Asia and the Middle East.
Indigo is famously used for dyeing denim so there were quite a few items of denim clothing on display, including a replica made by Levi's of the oldest jeans ever discovered. They were found in a mine and dated back to around 1890! I was quite surprised because they looked really modern, especially with the distressed look they had been given.
There was also a piece by William Morris who often used indigo in his work.
It was interesting to see a model of an old indigo factory as well, which showed the workers standing in huge baths of dye mixing it. Also, something I didn't know was that there are many plants that contain indigo and it comes in different forms such as tablets and balls.
The range of textiles demonstrated a lot of different dyeing techniques too, such as batik, tie-dye, shibori, discharge dyeing and resist techniques. Overall I enjoyed the exhibition as it had some beautiful textile pieces in it, and it was informative.