Kalen Kaminski and Astrid Chastka Let the Dye Move Them
The twosome has learned that they can’t always control the outcome—and that’s a good thing.
If the dyeing process was a novel, the rinsing out stage would be the climax. “There’s all this dark, murky water, and you’re like, ‘What’s it going to turn out like?!” explains Astrid Chastka, one half of the vibrant Brooklyn-based line Upstate. “You can take the same fabric, fold it the same way, and use the same dye—and still, they’re all different.” That means Astrid and her partner Kalen Kaminski encounter curveballs—plot twists, if you will—almost daily, and they’ve learned to embrace them. Here are three winners they never saw coming.
Kalen: This one on the left was a mistake.
Astrid: But I love that it’s kind of like an acid-wash—subtler with less contrast. We finally figured out that salt is really key: When you add more salt, it makes it more intense.
Kalen: With our black viscose, we use a process called discharge where you basically pull the color out of the fabric and get this green color.
Astrid: But then we got a bolt of fabric, discharged with the same recipe, and it turned gray. Then, all of a sudden, on another bolt, it turned green again. We try to be flexible.
Astrid: There are primary dyes, and there are what they call composite dyes. Turquoise, yellow, and fuchsia are the primaries. This gray is a composite.
Kalen: When we started, we wanted to have this even, gray color—charcoal—like I’m wearing. But when you don’t agitate it constantly, the colors in the composite separate.
Astrid: We love this more. We think it’s so fascinating, but there are some stores that are like, “What is that?” So Kalen changed the name from gray to earth. You can’t argue that this isn’t earth.
