Tough cuts, slow-cooked.
Kitchen aprons the laundry gave up on, dyed and mended by hand in New York.
Scroll to cook it. Press and hold the apron to crumple it.
1
Rescue
Laundries throw out kitchen aprons for set-in grease and small burns, even when the cloth is still strong. We buy them by the pound before they’re baled.
2
Scour
One hot wash lifts the old grease so the cloth can take color. The rinse water is filtered before it goes down the drain.
3
Crumple
Each apron is packed tight into a small tub with just enough dye to cover it, using up to 80% less water than a full dye bath. The folds decide where the color lands.
4
Dye
Fiber-reactive dyes bond to the cotton in the blend at room temperature. The polyester holds back, which gives the cloth its heathered, mottled look.
We don’t use natural dyes because most need pots of boiling water and metal salts to set.
5
Unfold
Every crease leaves a record. No two aprons come out of the bath alike.
6
Mend
Burn holes get a patch and heavy cotton sashiko. Melted ties are replaced with cotton twill tape. The damage stays visible.
Colors from the stove
Six muted colorways, each named for something cooking. Tap one to re-dye the apron.
Wash it less
A white apron shows every smear, so it goes in the wash after every use. Mottled, dyed cloth takes the day’s stains into its patina. Fewer washes means fewer plastic microfibers shed into the water over the apron’s second life.
Nothing harsh goes down the drain
Fiber-reactive dye needs soda ash, which leaves the bath strongly alkaline, around pH 10.5 to 11. Before anything goes down the drain, we bring it back to neutral with food-grade citric acid. Try it.
pH 10.8
In the kitchen, ragout is a stew cooked slowly until the toughest cuts turn tender. In the laundry, ragout is linen thrown out and headed for the shredder.
We rescue these discarded workhorses. With low-water dyeing and visible hand-mending, the hospitality industry’s waste becomes rugged aprons. Every stain sinks into the patina; every tear is stitched heavy.
Tough cuts, slow-cooked.
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Email us to join the listRagout, New York City.