Meet the Artist Making Tie-Dye Cool, Not Crunchy

Syroka’s magnetic technique separates itself from the tie-dye pack. His pieces are typically color-blocked. His pants, created from pairs of white Wrangler jeans that, according to Syroka, “make everyone’s butt look amazing,” evoke a groovy stained-glass effect in hues of dandelion and aqua and poppy. Other pairs in oranges and yellows, purples and blues, are reminiscent of an almost hypnotic crushed glass method. The pieces are thoughtfully planned out and Syroka notes that it took him quite some time to get to this point. “Early on, I don’t think [the pants] were as good as they are now in terms of the colors I chose…looking back, they were actually really ugly,” he says. “I wasn’t thinking about color theory. I was just dyeing jeans but then I started to expand my palette and became obsessed with colors mixed together.” When asked about his process, Syroka is secretive and reveals only that he uses powder pigments. “[The process] really is something that I have been trying to perfect and that I am still trying to perfect,” he says. “I don’t like talking about it that much.”

While his jeans are one of the main draws to his designs, he has also done tank tops to fundraise for the presidential campaign of Bernie Sanders. “I thought money for Bernie was a good excuse to make tanks and sell them for really cheap,” says Syroka. But you won’t see a random T-shirt or sock in Syroka’s offerings: He is selective about what he chooses to tie-dye. “I don’t want to dye every garment every because first of all I think that most tie-dye is really ugly,” he says. That being said, he currently has no plans to develop a full fashion line but imagines that interiors could be in the future. “I want to do furniture really badly,” he says. “I can’t get the image of a sectional out of my head.” A tie-dyed sectional in the pattern of mesmerizing stained-glass? We’re on board. Until then, grab a pair of his one-off pants.