While the 1960s is the decade most com­mon­ly as­so­ci­at­ed with tie-dye, its roots go way back be­fore the 20th cen­tu­ry to Asia.

The ear­li­est writ­ten records about tie-dye come from Chi­na and Japan. The process was used dur­ing the Tang Dy­nasty in Chi­na and the Nara Pe­ri­od in Japan as far back as the sixth cen­tu­ry and al­so in In­dia.

It has al­so be­come a hot quar­an­tine fash­ion trend.

When Amelia Navar­ro, 18, from San Fer­nan­do, goes out ex­er­cis­ing with her fa­ther, they al­ways get com­pli­ments on the colour­ful, match­ing tie-dye shirts that she de­signed when they wear them.

Speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia Amelia said "My dad, An­ge­lo Navar­ro did my first T-shirt and that in­spired me to do it my­self.

"I asked him how he did it, I al­so did my own re­search and watched YouTube videos so I didn’t mess up.

Tie-dye by Amelia Navarro.

"I start­ed dur­ing the Ju­ly/Au­gust va­ca­tion of 2020 when I was 17 years old.

"With the new dyes and range they last longer and you can get even more bril­liant colours to­day. While I like the colour­ful prints a lot, I like the Je­sus print the most."

She said among her oth­er hob­bies and in­ter­ests, she en­joys read­ing books, go­ing for walks, en­joy­ing arts and crafts, and na­ture. She did not of­fi­cial­ly play any sports but en­joys play­ing crick­et.

Amelia ap­pre­ci­ates the qui­et time in the things she does. She en­joys be­ing able to clear her head on a walk and even with ac­tiv­i­ties.

Amelia who al­so spends time walk­ing with her dad said she ad­mired Niza­mudeen Mo­hammed, a re­tired po­lice of­fi­cer who they meet every day on their walks. She ex­plained that he in­spired her to keep fit as even though he is in his ear­ly 70s, he is still strong and fit, and gives them great ad­vice about life and his ex­pe­ri­ences in life.

Jesus tie-dye design by Amelia Navarro.

She said one of her men­tors is her old­er sis­ter, An­ge­lisa Navar­ro. Amelia went to her sis­ter when she need­ed help, and An­ge­lisa's ad­vice and ex­pe­ri­ences in life en­abled her to al­ter her mind­set to be more ma­ture in her think­ing. Amelia would like to be­come in­de­pen­dent just like her sis­ter.

The San Fer­nan­do Cen­tral Sec­ondary School Form Six stu­dent's favourite sub­ject is En­vi­ron­men­tal Sci­ence.

Since Amelia en­tered the school in the pan­dem­ic last year, she had on­ly seen some of her class­mates and teach­ers in re­al life a few times.

Due to COVID-19, she hadn't known any of them very long, so there weren’t many con­nec­tions and so she would not have missed much.

Amelia ad­mit­ted, how­ev­er, that she was a lit­tle scared of be­ing so close to so many peo­ple in a school with COVID-19 still around.

She would like to be a foren­sic sci­en­tist when she grows up.

Amelia's favourite food is lasagna and her favourite dessert is red vel­vet cake. Her favourite tele­vi­sion show is Grey’s Anato­my, her favourite movie was Me Be­fore You, and R&B is her favourite genre of mu­sic.

Tie-dye shirts by Amelia Navarro.

Lisa Samuel Guide, Amelia's moth­er re­vealed that she did well in her school work. To­geth­er with her hus­band, An­ge­lo Navar­ro, they en­cour­aged their daugh­ter in her ac­tiv­i­ties.

Amelia, she said, is an old soul, as she favoured things, mu­sic and trin­kets from years be­fore her time es­pe­cial­ly, and she was a good friend to their old­er neigh­bours.

When it comes to aca­d­e­mics, Amelia's mom said she was very dri­ven and would set her alarm to get up in the wee hours of the night to study.

She en­cour­aged her daugh­ter to al­ways strive for the best and do her best at all her pur­suits.

Amelia has al­ways made her­self and her par­ents proud. Her par­ents' wish is that God bless her to con­tin­ue on the road to suc­cess and for a very bright fu­ture.