At Tye Dye Everything, everything is, well, tie dyed.
Shirts, sweaters, hats, socks, coveralls, dresses, shorts, hankies, underwear, halter tops, COVID masks. You name it, and for 25 years, owner Arlene Falcon, 70, has been adding, twisting, folding, and tying color into clothing.
“If it’s cotton, we’ll dye it,” said Falcon.
Downtown Moscow is home to several iconic businesses, but it’s easy to miss what is arguably the town’s most unique store. Hidden down a hallway past Mikey’s Gyros, Falcon and her staff create and sell a rainbow inventory crammed into a kaleidoscope shopping venue.
The shop itself resembles a garage. With Falcon at the helm, seemingly tireless employees work under a high ceiling at counters littered with dye bottles.
“It doesn’t fade or wash out,” said employee Anna Marsh, who’s also a customer. “I have Arlene tie dye that is so old if I wear it to work, customers ask me if they can buy it.”
Where it all began
Falcon was a teenager when the hippie movement swept America back in the 1960s. However, she didn’t get into the counterculture until she finished school in Ann Arbor, Mich., in 1979. That is when she says she started to become more of a hippie.
She said her passion for tie dye started in 1987 after she and her former husband went to see the Grateful Dead rock band in Spokane. After getting some tie-dye shirts from the concert, she and her former husband decided they wanted to tie dye clothing themselves. Two years later, they went to a Woodstock 20th anniversary concert in Spokane. They made about 20 tie-dye shirts by hand and sold them all with a tidy $200 profit.
After the concert, Falcon and her former husband decided to keep tie dyeing clothing and sell them at barter fairs, which Falcon described as “hippie swap meets.” Falcon already had been attending barter fairs since the early 1980s, but now she could attend them with a product to sell.
In the early ’90s, Falcon would attend barter fairs all over the Northwest – from Santa and Bonners Ferry, Idaho, to Malo and Tonasket, Wash. – all locations Falcon would sell her tie dyes. In 1992, Falcon and her former husband sold their log house in Santa and moved to St. Maries. In St. Maries, she opened a clothing store, Big River Designs. She began to make tie-dyed clothing in a building rather than her kitchen.
After a 1998 divorce, she got the tie-dye business. Shortly after, she moved to Moscow. Within a year, she opened Tye Dye Everything.
What is tie dye?
The tie-dyed clothing Falcon and her employees make is inspired by clothing made and worn by the Grateful Dead.
Dr. Rebecca Scofield, a history professor at the University of Idaho, is a customer of Tye Dye Everything. She specializes in studying 20th-century American history, particularly gender sexuality and popular culture.
Scofield said the Grateful Dead was synonymous with the American counterculture of the 1960s.
“Students were looking for more sustainable options for clothing, so they’re using a lot of recycled clothing,” Scofield said. “They were really looking at bright colors, colorfulness, mismatching patterns, feathers, fringe, all of these sorts of things that kind of got at an antiestablishment esthetic sort of pushed back on the short hair, suit, and tie form of masculinity. A lot of people at the time wanted these much more chaotic esthetic forms. I think tie dye really falls into that.”
Scofield was one of the many customers who discovered Tye Dye Everything during the pandemic.
“During the pandemic, when everything was very hard, my mom and I actually went to Tye Dye Everything and got matching tie dye overalls,” Scofield said. “Then we did an entire photo shoot together in my backyard, which might be some of my favorite photos of my mom and I together.”
How do you make tie dye?
The process of tie dyeing clothing is an art. It starts with a white article of clothing that serves as an empty canvas. The garment is soaked in soda ash for 10 minutes. This opens the fibers so dye will soak in. Clothing is put through a spin cycle in a washing machine and placed on the folding table. The garment is folded in different ways to get various patterns, then tightly bound with string to hold the fold. Next, it’s off to the dyeing table, where colors are added from bottles. The attire sits overnight to dry. The next day, the product is rinsed and dried.
Amand Shourd, an employee of Tye Dye Everything, said that handmaking its dyes sets the store apart.
“All of our dyes are powder-based, and we make them fresh every morning,” Shourd said as she applied bright blue dye on a white shirt.
Marsh, a customer and employee at Tye Dye Everything, said she and her children have been wearing tie dyed clothing from the store for a long time
COVID and 2008
Tye Dye Everything’s business model is as durable as its colors. It has survived two economic crises that closed many small businesses.
“I’d go to the [art] shows and found out that tie dye was kind of recession-free because it’s wearable art. So it’s not just a frivolous thing.” Falcon said.
For the COVID-19 outbreak, she started tie dyeing masks, and it soon became one of her most popular orders.
“I was making 100 masks, and they were gone by midweek. People were ordering four or five at a time, and I had orders going crazy,” Falcon said.
Going international
Tye Dye Everything’s influence reaches far beyond Moscow. Besides the store downtown, Falcon is able to sell her product to many people around the country and even internationally through her online website.
In April 2018, Falcon received an email from British Vogue with a list of 50 items that could be featured in their fall fashion. Falcon was selling products at Art Under the Elms and the Renaissance Fair, so she ignored the email. Soon came a follow-up email with a list of 25 different items. Falcon packaged them and sent them off.
Several months later, Falcon got an email from the singer Lorde and her team requesting two pairs of tie-dyed overalls with the “rainbow crinkle” pattern. Lorde had seen Falcon’s overalls on Vogue’s Instagram page and wanted some of the product straight from the source. The overalls went to pop star Justin Bieber and American model Karlie Kloss.
Besides a copious amount of clothing, Tye Dye Everything gets special requests to color things not meant to be worn. Tye Dye Everything has prepared table cloths, a drum head, yamakas for a bar mitzvah, and an elk skin.
Location, location, location
Falcon doesn’t seem to mind that the shop is slightly hidden.
“There’s kind of a certain charm to it,” she said. “I feel like it adds to the mystique and lore of Moscow that there’s fun little places here and there, and this is one of them. I don’t mind being in the way back.”
Her favorite part of the work is expressing herself through color and art, and her least favorite part is the business aspects of the shop.
“I have to spend so much time running the business that I don’t get to do as much of the tie dye as I love because I’m so involved in answering phone calls, placing orders, getting things mailed out, dealing with customers, and all that stuff. I don’t get to be on the table as much.” Falcon said.
“A trip to Moscow isn’t complete without a trip to Tye Dye Everything!” is the official motto of the store, and it is even on bumper stickers that it sells.
Whenever Falcon isn’t working in her store with her employees, she can be found on the road attending art shows and barter fairs, selling her colorful product wherever she goes with a smile on her face, a twinkle in her eye, and a vibrant tie-dyed shirt on.