NATURAL COLOUR & FIBRE. GROWN HERE.
NATURAL COLOUR & FIBRE. GROWN HERE.
- 0
TWO WOMEN.
ONE MISSION.
SEONAID BURNIE
Seonaid (pronounced "sho-nah") leads the dyehouse operations. With a Textile Design degree from the University of Dundee and many years successfully running her own natural dye practice through The Clothworks, she brings both the artistry and the technical knowledge to make plant-based colour work at a commercial scale.
Seonaid demonstrates that natural colour is anything but limited — revealing a vast, nuanced palette from locally grown dye plants, and proving that beauty, durability, and regeneration can co-exist. She's the person you'll be working with when you bring a project to our dyehouse.
GINA RUSSELL
Gina heads up farming and fibre operations at Papahoa Fibreworks. A graduate of the BHU Organic College, she began this work through her research project Growing Textiles (2023–2025) - exploring what it would take to grow, process and supply natural fibre and colour within Aotearoa.
Her practice spans fibre agriculture, soil biology, and material systems. She grows and processes linen and dye plants, collaborates with academics and artists, and has worked with brands to explore alternatives to synthetics. She's the one with soil under her fingernails and a spreadsheet open on the other screen.
OUR MAHI.
Papahoa Fibreworks grows, processes and develops fibre and colour - building a closed-loop system from seed to finished fabric.
WE GROW natural dyeplants such as indigo, madder and weld. Plants that have been used for centuries, naturally colouring fibres across continents, shaping trading routes and providing the colour basis for our modern world.
Our other main crop is for fibre - linen flax thrives in our Waitaha, Canterbury region, providing strong long line fibres to eventually create soft, breathable and traceable linen fabric.
WE OFFER colouring services to our community and commercially - operating NZ's only natural colour dyehouse. Natural dyes offer safe and traceable colour that gives unique hues that are much more spectrally nuanced than their synthetic counterparts.
Our webstore offers a range of materials for you to grow your own colour and dye your own fibres at home. Seeds, mordants, dye materials and basic recipes are readily available to get you started on your own natural colour journey.
We host farm visits, workshops, corporate tours and open days - because we believe the best way to understand what we're building is to come and see it. You're welcome any time (though summer, when our plants are in full bloom is best!).
FROM THIS LAND. FOR THIS LAND.
WHY THIS MATTERS.
Aotearoa deserves a textile system it can be proud of - local, transparent and circular. One where you can ask where your fibre came from and get a real answer. Where colour doesn't come at the cost of the whenua. Where the people who make your clothes are visible and valued.
Right now, 52,000 tonnes of clothing go to New Zealand’s landfills every year - most of it imported, synthetic and made far from here with little transparency about what it contains or how it was produced. We're not here to point fingers at this system. We're here to build an alternative.
