I was fortunate to work with Fran Yoshioka, a well-known, respected color and trend forecast expert on the Autumn/Winter 2014 palette. Color forecasting is an art and a science and Fran travels to Europe to check out the trends in boutiques, street life and some major trade shows. The major trends she described to me were fascinating and soon my mind was whirling. Here are a number of her key thoughts:
-Wine is one of the most important colors for the season
-William Morris influences
-Tiny indigo prints on cotton
-Honest tweeds, plaids and menswear inspirations
-Asian landscapes and Eastern Europe embroidery
-All in the family
-Deep teal, indigo blue, Cadet blue
-Butternut squash, rust and oxides
You can imagine how much fun it was to interpret those colors and influences in natural dyes on luxury fabrics. I created a swatchbook of the most important colors and trends and mounted them in this sweet spiralbound book called the Bee (which I love because I’m a beekeeper – part of the Portlandia persona, folks).
They were amazingly popular but I have a few left, and they are posted here for sale. Each book contains 12 pages, with 9 tipped in generously sized naturally dyed fabric swatches in heavy silk, fine wool and deadstock from Armani. Beautiful inspirations from Dawn Michelle Russell, Deena Schnitman and Bleu de Lectoure set the tone of the trends and I include a handout of the recipes used to create the colors.
These books are special-get yours before we’re out!