
Going to Seed: Marigolds – when cultural celebrations and religious rituals meet textiles industry
In the world of flora, the marigold flower holds a special place. Admired for its vibrant hues, it’s not just a feast for the eyes but also a symbol steeped in culture and tradition across the globe. During November, across Mexico, fields radiate a sea of orange and yellow as the cempasuchil (marigold flower) blooms. Synonymous with the Dia de los Muertos, the Day of the Dead, this annual Mexican festival has become a global phenomenon. People venture from all corners of the world to experience Mexico in its brightest and most colourful celebration.
At its core, this festival honours the lives of loved ones who have died. The golden raise of the marigold is believed to guide the souls of the departed back to the world of the living during the celebration. While the primary days of celebration fall on the first two days of November, the ritual preparations begin a week prior. Traditionally, for those living in rural regions of Mexico, families come together and journey into the mountains to collect wild marigold flowers or visit their local village markets to purchase blooms from farmers. The marigold is used to decorate the ofrenda, an altar dedicated to deceased family members and displayed in their family’s home, local cemeteries beside graves, and in public.
spaces: parks, shop windows, and street displays.

Image above: Farmer in Oaxaca, Mexico, harvesting marigolds in preparation for Dia de los Muertos, 2023.
Latino folklore describes the marigold as “the flower of 20 petals,” and it has sacred geometry. The marigold is also valued for its medicinal properties: it is believed to aid digestion, grow and strengthen hair, and repel mosquitos. However, when the Dia de los Muertos festival ends, the abundant marigolds that adorn the streets are gathered and discarded or left to decay. Today, Oaxaca textile artists and designers are finding new ways to ensure the spirit of the marigold lives on beyond the short celebration.
Teotitlán del Valle in the central valley of Oaxaca is renowned for its textile production and centuries-old traditional dyeing practices. Here the yaabguu, marigold in Zapotec, the local language is cherished for its colour yelding quality. In the village of Xiguie’a, Dr. Samuel Bautista Lazo, along with his parents Mario Bautista Martínez and Leonar Lazo González, manage a Benizaa family-run rug company and farm – Dixza Rugs and Organic Farm – where they produce hand-dyed rugs woven with native criollo wool.

Reminiscing on the Dia de los Muertos celebrations during his childhood, Lazo says, “After the Day of the Dead, my mother would take the flowers off the altar and put them to rest on our flower bed and leave their seeds to germinate again.” This is a celebration of life and death and the cycles of life – rebirth and renewal. Working closely with local farmers who dedicate their land and lives to cultivate marigolds, Dixza Rugs has formed relationships that support their local community’s economy and agricultural practices to ensure that the growing and selling of marigolds are sustainable for the farmers. In the lead-up to the festival, the marigold is in high demand; however, following the celebration in November, when the sales of marigolds rapidly decline, Dixza Rugs purchases the remaining flowers from the harvest. They use the marigold as a dye plant to colour their criollo wool, which is handwoven into rugs. Their dyeing technique has remained unchanged for generations, and, as a zero-waste process, the entirety of the flower is used within their dye bath.

Also, in the Teotitlán del Valle, Doña Josefina Jiménez, the founder of Mujeres que Tejen, Women who Weave, is similarly employing the heritage practices of their ancestors who utilised Indigenous plants and flowers to produce plant dyes. Oaxaca has become a popular tourist destination. With the rising interest in local craft experiences, Jiménez is sharing the traditional Zapotec natural-dyeing techniques with materials such as the marigold in immersive, hands-on workshops. Due to its abundance, the marigold is one of the essential dye materials for the collective of women Jiménez works with. They save the marigold flowers from the ofrendas in their homes, local cemeteries, or those that are donated to them. They preserve the flowers by drying them to ensure a constant source of organic pigment throughout the year.

The process of extracting colour and dyeing the wool with marigold is laborious. The flowers must first be boiled, beginning with a low heat, gradually increasing the temperature, and leaving the pot to simmer overnight. This ensures that as much colour is extracted from the flowers as possible. Before adding the wool, women remove the flowers and mordant the fibre with alum, which enables the colour to fix to the wool and increases fastness. The wool can then be added to the dye pot and simmered until the desired shade is achieved. After washing and drying, the wool is ready to be woven. Mujeres que Tejen produce limited collections of handmade accessories including bags and rugs.
In central Oaxaca, Marie Farneth and Maddalena Forcella, founders of the collaborative textile design studio Madda, like Jiménez, visit local cemeteries just before the caretaker removes the offerings from the gravestones to be thrown away, along with the marigolds on the altars displayed in stores throughout the town.

Image: Dia de los Muertos decorations at the Museo Textil de Oaxaca, 2023.
Following the basic principles of colour theory, Madda works with the primary colours to build their extensive spectrum. Using cochineal, indigo, and marigold, through successive immersions in the dye bath, adjusting the percentages of each dye, Madda shows an in-depth understanding of the alchemy of colour and possibilities that can be achieved using only three plant dyes. “Most of our dye recipes need yellow,” says Forcella. “For instance, we create our terracotta with cochineal and marigold, and depending on the percentage of each dye and the natural tone of the wool, we can achieve different colours such as our Tierra Sombra, marigold and cochineal, a warm, earthy colour or Sombra quemada, a darker hue than Tierra Sombra by dyeing dark grey wool with marigold and cochineal.” The marigold is crucial to the spectrum. “We can secure the supply for the whole year,” Forcella adds. “Its availability here in Mexico and ease of handling makes it our first choice for yellow dye.” She continues: “The marigold is one of our main sources of colour. We use it to dye all our wool and produce a range of products – including rugs and pillows. We also use the petals for our eco-printed throws and pillows.” Eco printing is the process where petals are placed across natural fabrics, bundled and wrapped securely, and then, through gentle steaming, the natural colour transitions to the textile and leaves delicate impressions of the petal on the cloth.

In the East, the marigold holds similar significance in Hindu ceremonies. Diwali, India’s biggest and most important holiday of the year, according to the ancient Hindu calendar, is observed annually on Amavasya, the 15th day of the month of Kartik. In 2024, the Festival of Lights will be celebrated on Friday, 1 November. In southern India, Diwali celebrates the victory of Lord Krishna’s destruction of the demon Naraka, who is said to have imprisoned women and tormented his subjects. In northern India, Diwali honors the triumphant return of Lord Rama, his wife Sita, and brother Lakshmana, from a 14-year exile in the forest. On Diwali, people exchange gifts and sweets, enjoy a delicious feast, watch firework displays and wear new clothes, clean and decorate their home. The festival gets its name from the row (avali) of clay lamps (deepa) that Indians light outside their homes to symbolise the inner light that protects from spiritual darkness. In India, the saffron hue of the marigold is considered auspicious and holds spiritual significance as a symbol of surrender to a god. During Diwali, they can be seen adorning the doors and windows of homes as well as in garlands and offerings to Hindu gods.
Beyond Diwali, there are many other marigold-filled celebrations, including Holi, the Hindu festival of colours when abundant marigolds are thrown joyfully across the streets, and it is customary to expect a torana – a chain of marigold flowers tied together to form a garland – to be draped around the neck of visitors. Ancient plaques dating back to 1300-100 BCE from Chandraketugarh in West Bengal depict people using marigold-like flowers as decorative adornment, displayed in the doorways of homes and shrines.

The marigold is known as genda in Hindi or jhandu in Sanskrit. Whilst jhandu once referred to the calendula officinalis or pot marigold variety, it is not the variety that is known across India today. In the 16th century, when Portuguese traders arrived in India, they brought seeds of marigold tagetes erecta, a variety native to South America. At the time, tagetes were often mistaken for jhandu, and were easier to cultivate, an advantage for meeting the high demand across the nation. Thus, the variety of tagetes gained popularity and became the new marigold in India. “The marigold is an inseparable part of everyday life here in India; it is linked to our milestones from birth to death,” explains Mandu Vaishnav, founder of the social enterprise Saheli Women. “When a child is born, their mother worships at the sun temple by offering marigold flowers, and when we die, our bodies are covered in marigold flowers to guide our spirits. When someone has an important event, we send them with a marigold and a red tilak, a mark made on the forehead. When guests visit, we welcome them with marigold flower malas garlands.”

The marigold is present in every worship and pooja, or worship ritual. Like in Mexico, where the marigold is offered to a life that has passed, in India, the flower similarly represents an offering to something beyond life on Earth. In this case, it is offered to God, and religious custom states that as a gift to God, it is a mark of respect not to simply throw the flowers away but to set the marigold flowers free on the water. Hindu men submerge their bodies in the Ganges and float amidst a swirling mass of marigolds, a practice believed to purifies the soul. In India, yellow symbolises sanctity, and the saffron of the marigold represents courage and sacrifice. Whilst a sea of saffron marigolds floating down streem is a striking image, the ecological impact of chocked rivers threatens India’s ecosystem. In 2006, in Mumbai, Rupa Trivedi, founder of the female-led enterprise Adiv Pure Nature, had the idea to tackle this issue by collecting flowers from the Siddhivinayak Temple in the Prabhadevi neighbourhood of the city. It is an important temple that attracts approximately 4.8 million worshippers every month. Trivedi called this the “Temple Blessings.” Gathering marigolds, hibiscus, and roses, the petals are used at the Adiv natural dye and eco-printing atelier. As water-based processes, they uphold the religious teaching that the flowers must be returned to water. Today, Adiv supplies lengths of plant-patterned fabrics to international partner brands including Dosa and Eileen Fisher while producing their own collections of women’s clothing, fine silk and cotton scarves, and homewares. Trivedi successfully developed an initiative that connected cultural traditions to the textile industry and environmental prosperity in India. It was an inspiring idea that has influenced others across the country.

In Jaipur, Nila House, a non-profit initiative founded in 2016 by Lady Carole Bamford, conducted a research visit in 2021 to meet Trivedi and see firsthand how the Temple Blessings Project operates. Learning eco-printing from the artisans at Adiv, Nila House returned to Jaipur and implemented a training programme to teach women from rural communities the art of eco-printing, using recycled flowers. Eco-printing is an accessible technique with low barriers to entry; it requires no machinery, or expensive resources, and minimal training, and the results can be immediate and spontaneous. Teaching rural women the technique has enabled them to find new employment opportunities. Nila House continues this education programme, and what began with recycling flowers from their celebrations has now expanded to a community effort. They leave baskets outside their entrance and invite the local community to donate their flowers after the festivities, which supplies Nila with a continual source of petal material.

In the village of Bhikamkor, Rajasthan, at the Saheli Women workshop, the marigold is at the centre of exciting explorations into the possibilities of plant colour and its commercial viability. The marigold is combined with other natural dyes and mordants to produce green and red tones, representing the vibrant explosions of colour that are synonymous with Indian celebrations. This offers an expansive palette of natural colours for the brands that they partner with to select from. The Maryam dress, printed and constructed by Saheli Women for Lekha, a sustainable womenswear brand based in the United States, exemplifies how ecoprinted fabrics are developing in sophistication and style to appeal to the global fashion market. The marigold continues to grow in popularity, and Vaishnav reveals the plans for Saheli Women: “We are developing a marigold farm at the Kali Beri studio. Many of the ladies in our village have agricultural knowledge, and the creation of the farm will support our capacity to hire more women in the village. This project was born out of our desire to condense our value chain and supply a direct source of marigold flowers for our natural dye team.”

From Mexico to Mumbai, the marigold’s natural dye is seeping across borders and leaving a lasting impression. However, the essence of the marigold and its spiritual significance in representing the fragility of life are still important messages that artisans such as Dr. Lazo want to share. Unlike other dye plants, the organic colour the marigold produces is softer. “There are natural colours like indigo that can last 200 years or more, but the marigold is not like that – it is ephemeral,” Lazo says. It’s an apt reminder of the marigold’s connection to honouring the temporality and sanctity of life.
Text by Katerina Knight
Going to Seed: Marigolds – when cultural celebrations and religious rituals meet textiles industry industry was first published in Selvedge issue 121: Adorable.