lifestyle / Art
TIE-DYES TO MAKE THE
World Go ‘Round by Lisa Blake
Photos courtesy Mary Beth Osburn
H
and-dyed and made with heaps of love, Marybgoround Tie-Dyes are making waves in the festival and boho retail communities. Owner Mary Beth Osburn can hardly keep up with orders — including large tie-dye fulfillment requests from a legendary Haight-Ashbury shop. Business is blowing up, and Osburn is raking in some well-deserved recognition. The 36-year-old Texas native picked up tie-dye as a hobby nearly a decade ago, making shirts and bandanas for friends. Always with an eye for fun, vibrant fashion and a zest for music festivals, Osburn says tie-dye has held a longtime presence in her life. Though, it wasn’t until she was hula-hooping at a 2018 String Cheese Incident
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concert in Telluride that the industry side of things really crossed her path. She hit it off with a tie-dye vendor who invited Osburn to work some upcoming festivals with her. “They paid me in clothes,” Osburn says. “At that point, tie-dye was still just a passionate hobby for me.” Fast-forward to 2020 when she and her husband Kevin were sitting on their couch in Alma drinking coffee while Osburn rinsed out colorful creations she’d dyed as Christmas presents for loved ones. With a nudge from her husband to take her hobby next-level, Osburn says she felt a burst of inspiration and starting creating like crazy, posting her baby onesies and women’s tops on Facebook and Instagram. “Friends and family started buying them up and I thought oh, they’re just being sweet and supporting me,” she says. “Then friends of friends started messaging me and putting in orders. Word just spread like wildfire.” In a positive spin on the 2020 pandemic, increased potential customers were at home, on their phones scrolling social media and not spending money on things like travel or going out. Osburn felt the global push to support local artists and small businesses during this tough time, and she churned out consistent orders for halters, dresses, kimonos and high-waist bell-bottoms in her signature earthtoned geometric designs. In October of 2020 after finding Marybgoround Tie-Dyes on Instagram, Love on Haight Tiedye Emporium in San Francisco asked Osburn to be a part of their artist collective. Osburn now fulfills 60 orders at a time for the well-known boutique that include dresses worn five ways, yoga bodysuits, hooded jumpsuits and other pieces
that can’t be found anywhere else. Marybgoround Tie-Dyes is carving a name in the industry with dizzying new age geode-inspired collections and a flowy women’s line created with hula-hooping and mountain festival romping in mind. Recent forays into men’s long-sleeved shirts, matching mommy-and-me bell bottoms, overall shorts and wrap dresses have proven successful. Osburn uses 100% natural fiber clothing made of high-quality cotton, hemp and linen — no polyester here. Her dyes come from Dharma Trading Co. in California, and her patterns stem from sacred geometry folding. She very rarely calls on the classic Grateful Dead-era rainbow spiral. Thanks to a forest-flanked mountain home at 10,300 feet, she’s able to snow dye November to June — an eco-conscious process in which she hand-ties blank linens using 100-pound wax string, layers on powdered dye and then packs pure Colorado snow on top. One-of-a-kind designs unfold as the snow melts down inside her loft studio. “Tie-dye is like sisters, not twins. It’s never going to be identical,” she explains. “That’s the thing I love about tie-dye, that it’s always a surprise when you open up the design. I get a thrill of excitement every time.” Patience and timing is key in this style of “slow fashion,” Osburn says, noting that one kimono takes five days to create, with the fabric and dye sitting for 72 hours before rinse out in order to gain her desired high-saturation vibrancy. She typically has 30 pieces in motion at once. “Each artist has their own style,” she says. “It’s like your fingerprint. Everyone’s is different. And that’s really cool to me.” Look for Marybgoround Tie-Dyes this spring in a vintage 1964 Hideaway camper pop-up shop on Main Street in Fairplay and at festivals throughout the state. Catch her latest design drops — they sell out fast — on Instagram: @_marybgoround_. +
Tie-dye is like sisters, not twins. It’s never going to be identical.
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