Sunday Visit is our interview series where we sit down with a luminary, visionary and creative in the Natural dye world. We want to bring you the best of what is out there and show off all of the amazing work being done in our community. This week, we have Ceilidh Chaplin of BillyNou. Ceilidh rose to notoriety with her incredible YouTube Channel she created with her partner. She has an organic and whimsical aesthetic to her practice and takes us along on her journey. Read more to learn about her relationship to motherhood, ice dyeing and not being too precious about putting yourself out there.

All Photos by Alex Valentino.

Tell us your origin story. How did BillyNou come to be?

Oh goodness… Well, I started making my overalls nearly 10 years ago whilst I was pregnant with my first baby Billy (I’m sure you can guess where the Billy part came from). I just wanted something big and comfortable and easy to wear and I just continued making them on and off over the following years. I moved to France and I noticed my mother in law added ‘nou” every time she would speak to Billy, as a kind of affectionate way of greeting her and I thought this was really sweet, et voila, BillyNou was born. It was also at this point that I started using a lot of vintage fabric that I would find here in the markets, and it was whilst searching for a less toxic way to dye fabric that I stumbled on the world of natural dyes. I read that avocados would dye a pink colour and I knew that this was the route I wanted to go down even before I’d tried any dyeing!

Apart from that, I have always been into crafty/arty making things. I think it all started in kindergarten, I went to a Steiner school and we had handwork lessons and they were my absolute favourite, knitting socks, cross stitching, felting, making dolls, just a total dream school for a young kid like me. I also went to LCF in London to study knitwear and I guess that I always wanted to somehow get my creations out into the world, although I’m not sure it was always a conscious desire.

What is your first memory of experiencing natural dyes? What initially drew you to the medium?

Like I mentioned above, I was searching for a way to dye the overalls I was making, as they were all white and I really wanted to add some colour, but to continue using the white vintage fabric I was finding in the markets here in France.

My first experiment was with avocados, I had no idea what I was doing but I was so excited about the beautiful pink I was about to achieve. My results were definitely not pink! But a kind of beautiful navy blue with the shapes of the avocado skins printed into the fabric. I was so blown away at how beautiful the results were that I was hooked instantly. Obviously now I know why I got the results I did but I had no idea at the time and it was such a magical experience.

You have such an amazing presence on YouTube, how did you start with that platform? Tell us a little bit about your practice and how your videos evolved.

Thank you. So this is the part of the story where my partner Alex really started to get involved in the Billynou story. He is a photographer and filmer and one day he was just like, “we should start a youtube channel” . I won’t take any credit for the idea, I would never have thought of it if it wasn’t for him. I totally trusted his vision and I always loved the way he captured Billynou in photos, that I was sure he would do something cool with the videos too.

I realized pretty quickly that I had to let go of any F***s I might have about what I looked like, how I sounded, if I made mistakes etc and, for me, that has been the most challenging but also most rewarding bit. A lot of growth happens in those kinds of situations. Also Alex is a one take kinda guy, so I just had to roll with it.. Haha

We started with the idea of doing “how to” videos but we have slowed down a bit on those now, we actually haven’t been doing so many videos on youtube recently as we have been focussing a bit more on instagram but I think, when we do get back into youtube, things will be different, more storytelling, lifestyle, featuring other artists etc, that kind of thing.

I think a lot of people think that youtube is a quick and easy way to make money, and it definitely can be for some people, but for us, it has been more kind of like a diary. Each video reminding us of particular moments in our life and also something for our girls to look back on when they are older too. It definitely hasn’t been an easy money maker, so don’t feel disheartened if you’re out there struggling on youtube! But, for us, viewing it through the lens of recording memories and moments together, makes it very much worth it.

I really think we’ve had success on youtube because we keep things very real, simple and authentic and Alex has such a special way of capturing the moments that people really seem to love.

We recently saw that you were working with Ice Dyes! We love how it came out on the reel that you made! Can you tell us about what inspired you to try this technique?

Yes! So I have just dyed a whole collection with ice. I am definitely mad and it was definitely worth it. It all started with a scarf. I knit and felt giant scarves in winter and I was actually planning on bundle dyeing a few of them. I tried one and it was beautiful but it took me forever to get all the petals and dye bits off the wool after dyeing it, I gave up on that idea pretty quickly.

I was really wanting a way to get interesting patterns on my scarves without just scrunching them up. I had never tried ice dyeing before but I had been admiring Cara’s incredible ice dye results that she had been sharing over the last couple of years and suddenly the download dropped. I tried it and the results on the felted wool were better than I could have imagined. It is really so interesting how different fibers take dyes differently and this combination was an instant 100% yesss for me, the swirling patterns on the softest of wool just make my mouth water.

This, for me, is one of the things I love most about working with things like natural dyes, you will never stop learning, there is always something new to discover. It is SO exciting.

Your flower hammering wall paper also caught our eye, tell us about how you became inspired to make this!

Oh yes, I have really enjoyed covering walls in real flower prints these past couple of summers, I have also been experimenting on wood and that has worked beautifully too. Flower pounding has become so popular over the last few years, for very good reason (who in their right mind wouldn’t want to try it right?), and I think I was just in the full throws of flower pounding heaven a couple of years ago, in my studio, with a hammer in my hand, a bowl of freshly picked flowers but no fabric immediately available and something just took over me, I started hammering the flowers into the wall behind my sewing machine on a kind of natural dye flower high.

After I’d calmed down a bit I started to experiment with ways to mordant the walls and seal the colours and on different surfaces, such as wood, and now I have a pretty solid process but there is definitely still more experimenting to do as I’ve only really had two summers to play with the fresh flowers for this technique.

Outside of natural dyeing, what are your passions?

My kids, of course. But not just my kids, I am totally obsessed with women and children and birth. I think supporting women through pregnancy and birth would be something I would love to do with my life at some point. I feel like appreciating being a woman came quite late to me but I want to be very sure my girls grow up knowing how powerful they are.

One of my absolute passions at the moment is my Wednesday evening dance class. I love ragga dancehall and recently started a class in my village. My village is so small and the fact this class exists here is some kind or miracle, which makes it that much more fun!

What is a day in the life of Ceilidh?

Well, most mornings we get up and Alex makes us pancakes or waffles for breakfast. I think I’ve gotten a little too used to how special this is, I’m a stereotypical Taurus, food is the way to my heart.

My days have started to change a little recently as my second baby Folasade has just started mornings at creche. This is a huge deal for me as up until now I’ve been squeezing all my work into nap times. She is nearly three and keeping my babies close for as long as possible is incredibly important to me but she was ready and so was I, for a change.

Now Alex and I divide our days, and having a whole half day to work is a total game changer for me. I will usually start by printing any orders I need to pack, and I will get on with that. Or I might need to make some orders, in which case I’ll crack on with that.

If we have some filming planned then I will prepare everything I need for that which usually includes cleaning our kitchen as this is where we do most of our filming, This is a bit of a blessing in disguise if you know what I mean! I often don’t know exactly what I will be doing each day but something along the lines of the above. Evenings are for family time, Alex usually cooks dinner as well ( I know I know) while the kids cause a ruckus.

If you could give little you one piece of advice. What would it be?

Well, to tiny me, I would say that “It’s really ok to be shy, being shy doesn’t mean you are stupid” To middle sized me, I think any advice would have fallen on deaf ears but I do sometimes wish that self acceptance had been modeled to me more clearly.

Anything else we should know? What is coming up for you next?!

Well yes actually, I do have a couple of exciting things coming up. Firstly, I will be hosting my second Creative Floral Retreat in May 2025 here in the south of France, with a couple of my flower fairy besties. We did one last year and it was, quite frankly, INCREDIBLE. A long weekend of floral banquets, natural dyeing, creating floral printed silver jewelery and flower inspired connection activities, in a heavenly French countryside location. We have early bird tickets available right now if anyone is interested. We haven’t shared about it yet so you are the first to know!

Secondly, Due to a series of business adventure collaborations turned friendships, I have taken the plunge and outsourced some of my overall/jumpsuit production for a small batch of ready to dye overalls. This has been a huge decision for me and not something I had planned for Billynou but the stars aligned in a way that made it hard not to. They are actually already available on my website but I just haven’t shared about it yet either. This will hopefully give me the space to really focus on the bespoke garments I adore making myself with vintage French linen and natural dyes, whilst also expanding the scope of what I offer….we will see how it goes.

Oh, and yes, we are also working on a book. Very slowly but very surely. I have no idea when it will be ready but just know it’s coming. The idea is that it will be a beautiful Billynou photo book full of Alex’s stunning images with some natural dye projects and tutorials.

That’s all from me. Thank you so much for having me, It’s a big honor. Ceilidh