Written by Julia Kiryanova, Artist
Julia Kiryanova is an artist working in tapestry, painting, and works on paper from her atelier in the centre of Amsterdam. A two-time Royal Award nominee.
Most clothes are made to be replaced. A hand-painted garment is made to be kept. When a painter picks up a jacket instead of a canvas, the result is no longer fashion in the usual sense. It is an original work that happens to have sleeves.
In this article I want to share what hand-painted clothes actually are, where the practice comes from, how painting on fabric differs from painting on canvas, and how to care for a piece so it lasts for years.
What makes clothing hand-painted
Hand-painted clothing is a garment where the image is applied directly by hand, with a brush, a palette knife or the artist's fingers. No screen, no digital file, no repeat. Every mark is placed once.
That is the real difference with printed clothing. A print can be produced a thousand times and every copy is identical. A painted garment exists once. You can see it up close: slight variations in the density of the paint, a brushstroke that thins out at the edge, colour that sits a little deeper where the fabric drank more of it.
For a collector, this is the same logic that separates an original painting from a reproduction. The value lives in the hand.
A short history of painting on cloth
Painting on what we wear is far older than the art world. Some of the most refined techniques in history were developed for clothing first.
Yuzen: painting silk in Kyoto
In late 17th-century Kyoto, the fan painter Miyazaki Yuzensai gave his name to yuzen, a method of painting kimono silk. Fine lines of rice paste act as a barrier, and the dyes are then brushed on by hand, almost like watercolour on paper.
The results are astonishing. Whole landscapes, rivers and blossoming branches flow across a single garment. You can see beautiful examples in the textile collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Batik and the Dutch connection
In Java, batik makers draw hot wax onto cotton with a small copper tool called a canting, then dye the cloth in layers. UNESCO recognised Indonesian batik as intangible cultural heritage in 2009.
There is a Dutch chapter to this story. In the 19th century, Dutch manufacturers tried to imitate hand-drawn batik by machine. The wax prints that came out of that, still produced by Vlisco in Helmond, found their true home in West Africa. It is a telling detail. Industry spent decades trying to copy what a hand does naturally.
Sonia Delaunay takes painting into the street
In the 1910s and 1920s, the painter Sonia Delaunay carried her abstract circles and colour blocks from canvas onto coats, scarves and dresses. For her, there was no hierarchy between a painting on the wall and a painting on a body. Both were simply colour in movement.
She is one of the reasons I see no hard line between my paintings and the garments I paint. The V&A in London holds wonderful material on artists who crossed into textile and dress.
The jacket as canvas
Even Elsa Schiaparelli's famous lobster dress, made with Salvador Dalí in 1937, was printed rather than painted. The truly hand-painted garment returned with force much later, in the punk scene and in 1980s New York.
Artists like Keith Haring drew their figures on almost any surface within reach, jackets included. A painted jacket became a statement of identity. You could not buy it in a shop. You had to know the person who made it.
Painting on fabric is not painting on canvas
People often assume a garment is just a soft canvas. It is not. As a painter, this is what makes the work interesting.
Canvas is stretched and primed. It holds still. Fabric moves, folds and stretches with the body, so the paint has to stay flexible. A thick impasto layer that looks wonderful on a painting will crack on a sleeve within weeks.
Every fibre also behaves differently. Cotton and linen absorb colour readily and give a soft, matte finish. Silk lets colour bleed and bloom. Denim pushes back, and its weave shows through the paint, which can be beautiful if you work with it.
Then there is composition. A painting is seen from one angle. A garment is seen from every side, in motion, and partly hidden by arms and folds. I think about where the eye lands when someone walks into a room, and where the image breaks as the body turns. It is closer to sculpture than people expect.
This tactile thinking is the same instinct behind my tufted tapestries. Textile is never neutral. It always adds texture, warmth and its own character to the image.
How to paint your own clothes
If you would like to try it yourself, here is the basic method I recommend to friends.
- Choose natural fibres. Cotton, linen, denim and silk take paint best. Heavy synthetics tend to resist it.
- Wash the garment first. New clothes carry a finish called sizing that stops paint from bonding. Wash without fabric softener and let it dry fully.
- Use the right paint. Use dedicated textile paint, or acrylic paint mixed with a textile medium so it stays soft and flexible.
- Protect the other side. Slide a piece of cardboard inside the garment so the paint does not soak through.
- Work in thin layers. Build colour slowly. Thin layers bend with the fabric, thick ones crack.
- Let it dry, then heat-set. Once dry, iron the reverse side without steam, following the paint manufacturer's instructions. Heat is what makes the colour permanent.
Start with an old shirt, not your favourite jacket. Fabric teaches you quickly, and mostly by surprise.
How to care for a hand-painted garment
A well-made painted piece is durable, but it deserves the care you would give any original work.
- Turn it inside out before washing.
- Wash cold or at 30°C on a gentle cycle, or by hand.
- Skip the tumble dryer. Let it dry flat or on a hanger, out of direct sun.
- If you iron, iron on the reverse side.
- Never dry-clean unless the artist confirms it is safe.
Treat it this way and the colour will stay vivid for many years. Like a good leather jacket, it may even improve with wear.
Why wear a painting
We hang paintings on walls and see them when we are home. A painted garment goes out into the world with you. It is seen on the tram, at dinner, in a gallery opening. It starts conversations that a print never would.
There is also something quietly radical about it. In a world of fast fashion, choosing one piece that was painted slowly, by hand, by a person you could actually meet, is a small act of care. For the maker and for the thing itself.
If you are drawn to the idea of living with original work, you can explore all artworks from the atelier, or read more about how the studio began. And if you have a garment of your own in mind, I always enjoy a conversation about a commission.
