Weathering Blue
The project Weathering Bleu is a tangible expression of color and seasonal changes. Commissioned by the Zuiderzee Museum, Aliki van der Kruijs developed a series of fabrics.
The designer drew her inspiration for the project from the museum’s steam laundry, where sheets are bleached with bluing and sunlight. Aliki painted a pattern inspired by a shirt from 1910 with bluing on cotton. During the exhibition, the processed fabrics hung on a clothesline in the outdoor museum and acted as weather vanes. Each cloth had a label stating the number of days that it had been hanging out on the line, the average temperature, wind force, wind direction and the number of millimeters of rain that the fabric had absorbed.
Rain, wind and sun washed and dried the fabrics and over the months changed their color from hard blue to a lighter shade of blue. One by one, they were then taken off the clothesline and made into shirts after a contemporary 2014 pattern.