Colour
- Natalie McComb
- Nov 30, 2015
- 2 min read
Colour is such an integral part of everyday life and through my work I really love to explore colour as much as possible even though this can be challenging at times. I’m always very exciting by new projects and after a very self expressive and self motivated first module of my university degree, ‘Colour’ allowed me the opportunity to design for a specific client (something which I had not done before). The focus was on using a fully resolved colour story to create and showcase a fashion fabric collection through weave. Not only did I learn a lot about technical colour but I also learnt a lot about myself and my own use of colour.
My client was ‘Amber’ a constantly travelling freelance fashion stylist with a capsule wardrobe to accompany her. She had a kooky relaxed elegance mixing vintage finds with designer pieces and her weekends are spent visiting bustling antique markets and cafes. Working with this particular client in mind, I began my primary research in London where in the eclectic borough of Notting Hill I found my main inspiration for the project. My chosen colour palette was inspired by the idea of vintage, so using muted tones of mauve, grey, mustard and amber and combining them with bold blue highlights and metallic silver enabled me to capture Amber's full personality.
With this being a colour focussed module, one of the key elements was a dip dyeing workshop where using primary procion dyes the aim was to create a colour wheel and tertiary swatches. The technicality behind the workshop really appealed to me just like the technicality of Constructed Textiles itself and I developed a much greater understanding for the process of colour mixing. I always try and translate my colour palette through yarn wrappings rather than swatches of fabric as I find them immensely useful to look at throughout a project. The creation of my client board for this project was imperative to ensure that no matter what direction my work went in I remained focussed on who my client actually was and the way in which I was going to design for her.
Through my research and photography especially, I was able to choose yarns that were not only applicable to the client and for a fashion application but I was also able to create a co-ordinated collection with fabrics varying in weight, structure and texture. Having been worried that I may have got distracted by the actual weaving this was very pleasing when I laid out all of my fabrics to review, however, I found that I had created more co-ordinating fabrics and less stand out designs. Aware of this, I adjusted my colour palette slightly to include more striking and dynamic highlights to lift the whole collection. Below are some fabrics from my final collection for Amber:
