A Practical Guide for Color Managers- THE SECOND C: COLOR WITH A PURPOSE (Part 1)

The American Association of Textile Chemists and Colorists (AATCC) is an industry advocacy group focusing on the effective application of color and functional finishes on textiles.  Textiles are used in many sectors including transportation, military/government, industrial, medical/ healthcare, sports/fitness, and fashion, thus the business and end-use requirements vary widely. As we see rapid changes in global business, AATCC “continues to evolve to meet the needs of those in  the ever-changing textile, apparel, and materials industries.” [1]

The textile, apparel, and materials industries are huge. The global apparel retail market drives about US$1.8 trillion in revenue. [2] Textile mills and apparel factories create another US$1.9 trillion in global revenue. [3] And these numbers grow every year.

The “Second C” in AATCC is for Colorists. This series of articles will deal with color in the apparel industry, focusing primarily on apparel brands, since that is where color specifications start. Additionally, we will see how practices emanating from brand color offices impact mills and garment factories.

The Purpose of the Second C

The Second C is a practical guide to assist colorists. The intention is not to present novel academic research or use big words. Rather, over the coming year, I will discuss my experience in commercial color management at several enterprise-level retailers and brands. The focus will be managing processes built around the Big Three—Light, Object, and Observer (or the LOO, as they will be called henceforth). All efforts to manage color, whether analog or digital, are built around the LOO since each of these three elements determines how (or if) we perceive color.

Over the coming year, I will discuss setting up a color process, digital versus visual assessment, color standards, choosing matching illuminants(s), Total Appearance (the impact of texture on a colored object), counting the cost versus value of color management, current and novel color technology, and do my best to either reinforce or skewer the conventional wisdom around color management.

The Purpose of Color
To start the series off, let’s talk about the purpose of a color department at an apparel brand. What does a color team do? Choose pretty colors? Reject labdips? Well, those are activities, but not a purpose. Ronnier Luo points out, “In our industry, color   is everything. It not only defines the product but creates a first impression of the selling space to the customer.” [4] As such, there are two aspects of color—inspiration and replication. In this article, we’ll cover inspiration—choosing the right color. In the next installment, we’ll review replication—producing finished goods that acceptably match the color standard and fastness requirements. Together, they assure that the product ends up the right color, which is the purpose of a color department.

What Drives the Brand?

Having the right skills for color inspiration and replication are very important. Before we dive into that, it is important to understand what drives the apparel brand. There are two types—Design-driven brands and Merch-driven brands. Essentially, Design-driven brands look forward and Merch- driven brands look backward. Design-driven brands are looking for newness—to present something different to the customer. Merch-driven brands focus on “giving the customers what they want” (or at least what they wanted, as shown by historical sales data). There is, of course, overlap between these Technical Insight models. Nevertheless, one can figure out who is in control by determining whether the chief merchant or head of design is higher in the organization.

Both models are vestiges of slower design cycles in the past and carry risk to the business. If a Design-driven brand guesses wrong, then sales and margin suffer. However, if the sales trends that Merch-driven brands bet on fail to meet the forecast, then sales and margin suffer for them as well. As it turns out, a new factor has emerged to sup- plant both Design and Merchandising as controlling factors—Sourcing-driven brands. It doesn’t matter what the product looks like if the mills and garment factories can’t meet the cost and timing targets (as is the case with current supply chain issues).

For at least 20 years, apparel brands have recognized that time is not their friend. For example, Target introduced their “Speed Is Life” mantra in 2002 in an effort to shorten the product development calendar. All brands have followed suit because they realized that it was not possible to forecast customer demand with calendars ranging from 9 to 18 months. This push to mitigate the risk of time on sales has been confused with “Fast Fashion”—that is, the push by some brands to forego design and just quickly copy products from conventional brands already in the marketplace. But that’s another story. Suffice it to say that speed has become the most important factor driving success for apparel brands—and speed has a huge impact on the color process, whether in inspiration or replication.

The skills required for color inspiration and color replication are not the same. And, depending on the business model of the brand, the skills required for the inspiration phase may well be radically different. However, both phases are important. A running joke (albeit uncharitable) at a brand at which I once worked was that we had the best process for replicating the world’s ugliest colors. That won’t do. So, in the next article, we’ll dive deeper into both processes.

References:

[1.] https://aatcc.org/about/, “About AATCC”

[2.] Global Apparel in USD—Source: Statista July 2020 (Forecast adjusted for expected impact of COVID-19)

[3.] https://shenglufashion.com/2018/12/18/market-size-of-the- global-textile-and-apparel-industry-2016-to-2021-2022/ (accessed November 2021)

[4.] Ming Ronnier Luo, Keith Hoover, Tinwei Huang, Jianlong Zhang, “LEDsimulator: The Colour Box,” SDC draft

[Reproduction Notice] This series of articles is published with the permission of the author, Keith Hoover, and has been edited and adapted. Any reproduction must clearly indicate the source and include relevant links.