Traditional Weaves of the World with Pauline Boiteux

Single fabrics: different assembly techniques

The Kuba tribe of Congo

This cloth is made out of a very specific material. It’s raffia fiber!

Artwork by Pauline Boiteux

Making these pieces of cloth is a team effort in the Kuba tribe: men cultivate the raffia palm and weave the thinly-cut plant into a very stiff drape. Then, women pound it in a mortar, which softens the fiber and makes it ready for the application of surface decoration. After cutting all the needed pieces, they combine them all to create intricate mazes and geometric patterns.

In the end, it creates a patchwork of different shapes and colors: 4 patterns, 3 to 4 colors. This technique is one of the two commonly used, the other one is a bunch of raffia fibers stacked together and attached to a base thread. It creates the same kind of result as a shaggy carpet, and makes very fluffy geometric patterns.

Raffia Cloth Panel Marked D43, Brooklyn Museum

Raffia doesn’t age like classic cloth, so I reproduced its specific qualities in the material’s parameters: you can change the roughness to make it dustier. Raffia cloth also loses some of its colors with time and exposure to the sun. Deep black colors take on an ashy blue tone, oranges become a bright yellow, and the natural beige fibers turn almost white. You can also reproduce this effect in the material.

The Kuna people of Panama

Artwork by Pauline Boiteux

The Kuna people make beautiful colored pieces of cloth called molas. The most traditional are geometric patterns and were first inspired by body painting designs. Creating outstanding molas is so complicated that it is actually a statute among Kuna women.

Today, and since the access to materials has become easier, molas have changed. Inspired by the modern world, they have become more and more figurative. But the technique has remained the same. These incredibly resistant materials can be used as a piece of their traditional clothing, as well as framed as art, made into pillows, or used as wall decoration.

A Kuna woman in Panama, artwork by Johantheghost

Over background fabric, the craftswomen sew layers of other fabrics using the reverse appliqué technique, to create geometric or figurative designs. They sometimes put an extra layer of embroidery to add the final touches and details.

The Uzbekistan dyes

Ikat is an ancestral silk weaving technique commonly used in the center of Asia. The term “ikat” has Malay origin but as the material has not endured well through history, we aren’t really able to pinpoint its origin. The difference between Malay and Uzbek ikat is mainly visible in patterns and colors, and their specific meanings. There are a few ikat techniques: warp ikat, weft ikat, double ikat and pasapalli ikat.

Public Domain

To create these characteristic patterns, the threads are pulled over their full length, and then color is applied to it. Weaving comes after dying, and that’s what creates the blurred edges of the colored patterns.

Artwork by Pauline Boiteux

So, in the end that means the pattern stretches over every single thread. This meant I had to work thread by thread in Substance Designer.

As the material itself is fairly simple, I created lots of variations in the patterns and colors to make it interesting. You can choose between 4 patterns, and the 4 colors are customizable; so is the diffusion of the dye! As in every Substance Designer file, you can of course add your own pattern to create even more variations.

Artwork by Pauline Boiteux

Artwork by Pauline Boiteux

Creating entire outfits

Ukraine: wool skirt and cross-stitched blouse

Ukrainian folk dress has its root in ancient history.

The fabric used for the skirts or aprons is usually wool. This is one of the oldest weaving techniques in the world: you can consider that, for wool, this is a time-tested classic. The way the fabric is woven creates a specific geometric pattern, and the difficulty lies in the fact that you have to imagine what the pattern is going to look like at the end, and count every thread to create that pattern. It takes a mind-blowing amount of time.

Artwork by Pauline Boiteux

Wool is actually fairly annoying to create in Substance Designer. There are so many tiny fibers all over the place! I had to find strategies to create the illusion of these fibers.

I’ve found a few different techniques, but the most efficient way is to apply a gradient linear to a pattern in a tile generator. When you use a high enough amount of gradients, it creates a very dense, noisy texture, and you can easily change the position, orientation and shape of the fibers using the node options.

Playing with the color variation creates depth, and to add a bit more randomness I usually pair it with a multi-directional warp node; that way, some fibers are split, just like threads on a used piece of fabric.

For the blouse, I reproduced a type of embroidery called cross-stitch. It is an ancestral type of embroidery that has had variations all over the world. In Ukraine, it became a part of traditional clothing. It might look simple, but it’s also long and arduous. I like to do cross-stitch on my off time: it calms my soul!

Creative Commons, Ghenady – Украинка

The best way I found to replicate those low-definition floral patterns was by looking at pixel art. After all, the point is the same: to translate the intention with very little information, and pixel art does this just perfectly. Using very low-resolution nodes helped me get those sharp-looking patterns.

Artwork by Pauline Boiteux

Turkmenistan

That outfit is inspired by traditional Turkmen brides’ dresses.

At first, when looking for references I was struck by the amount of details, in both fabrics and jewels. One of the most intricate parts of the outfit is a jacket called a chapan; lots of variations of this can be found in Central and South Asia. Usually worn by men, they are used in this particular case as a veil. Those complex patterns are made with braided threads that are then sewn on a larger piece of fabric. Lots of patterns and colors are displayed on these cloths, but I’ve found that black, red, orange and white are the most common.

Artwork by Pauline Boiteux

Artwork by Pauline Boiteux

Turkmen wedding dresses are made out of a lot of other pieces too. Check them out! They are spectacular.

The glorious shine of Indian clothes

Artwork by Pauline Boiteux

I have a deep love for Indian outfits. As I’ve created two saris already, I knew I wanted to add one to this collection. Researching for references, I discovered a variety of other gowns, including lehenga that inspired these materials. I fell in love with the complexity of the beading and figured out a kind of pattern.

With all that in mind, and having already worked on embroideries in the past, I really wanted to create a multitask material. It works well by itself, but you could also use it as a trim sheet, for colors, pearls, patterns. In the center, there are framed flowers, which you could use by themselves, for instance.

Artwork by Pauline Boiteux

Download the Lehenga material for free

Cambodian beads

My motivation to create the Cambodia beaded fabric was super-simple: I liked it, it was shiny, and I just wanted to make it.

After quite a bit of digging, I’ve found out that one of the things I also do in the early stages of research is to try to make something work as a texture in my head. How will it tile? What kind of details will I be able to show? Do I know some of the nodes that will help me create that pattern, of should I try out some new ones? In these cases, both the skirt and the top were fairly simple to translate into a texture.

Artwork by Pauline Boiteux

Japanese silks

Japanese embroidery is fascinating, because of the sheer amount of patience it involves, its discreet attention to details, and the elegance of its fabrics. The technique is very simple, because the artist is just pulling a simple thread in a basic loop, but the attention to detail is pushed so far that he or she can create an immense tableau.

A kimono is beautiful from far away, but you can go really close to the details and see more and more stuff come out, because it’s extremely fine work.

The designs are very symbolic and can have a lot of meanings, such as new beginnings, longevity, and good fortune.

Creative Commons, musume miyuki

The French touch

The delicate French lace

Artwork by Pauline Boiteux

I actually didn’t create this one because I wanted to: it was a request. So many people wanted it! And you know, it’s not because I didn’t like it, but it’s just… so… difficult. The fabric is so fine, and the knots are so complex to reverse engineer, and the pattern is so complex that reproducing it in Substance Designer was hell.

Ultimately, it works well and I like it. And now, you have the base, and you could input your Photoshop-made pattern to customize it.

Artwork by Pauline Boiteux

I wanted this customization option because there was no way I was suffering through another lace material ever again! So now you can avoid suffering like I did, and enjoy the lace.

Download the French Lace material for free

That collection is more an invitation to be curious than anything else.

Each of those materials is my humble attempt to provide new perspectives, to open a discussion about the art of making precious pieces of fabric requiring patience, dedication and skill. All over the world people from all horizons are crafting these pieces of art; by themselves, these artists are a huge inspiration. From the most renowned creators to those hidden away, they all matter, and all bring something to the table. The techniques they teach are shared between generations, and tell the story of an art form that will never die.