Notes on the winter palette

Every cold-weather run we make is built from four tones. They were not chosen to be fashionable and they do not change between seasons.

Bone is the lightest. It is warmer than white and it does not go grey against snow the way a true white does. It is the hardest of the four to dye consistently, and lots vary enough that we keep a reference swatch from the first run and match every subsequent one against it by eye.

Char sits where most people expect black. It is a very dark neutral grey with a trace of brown in it, and it reads as black in most light while keeping the texture of the cloth visible. True black flattens a weave into a silhouette.

Olive is the awkward one and the one we would defend hardest. It is the only tone here with a clear hue, and it does the work of a colour without behaving like one — it sits beside bone, char and camel without argument.

Camel is the warmest and the most demanding. It shows every mark and it needs the right cloth behind it, which is why we only cut it in the heavier weights.

Four tones is a constraint, and constraints are the point. Anything from one winter works with anything from another.