Smash of Styles to freeze up A/W season

Stahl’s colourful Fashion Colour Forecast for Autumn/Winter 2010/2011 should brighten these two seasons, especially for those living in the Northern Hemisphere, where, once the leaves have fallen, it can be a pretty colourless time of the year. The forecast comes in two forms, an eye-catching poster and a more detailed booklet.

The poster features a grey-eyed blonde dressed in a bright yellow scarf and shoes, red blouse and purple leggings that will brighten any office. Below the photograph is the usual series of colour swatches, grouped under six colour groups.

These colour groups are repeated in the Colour Forecast booklet, which leads with Alan Kay’s quotation “The best way to predict the future is to invent it”. The theme that follows says that morphing the past and the present, the old and the new, leads to a creative and innovative future that is help by new technology. This idea is demonstrated throughout the booklet which uses a fascinating and extensive selection of photographs to illustrate the thoughts behind each chapter.

This year the colour selection covers the whole spectrum. Almost any colour in the rainbow can be found somewhere, even it is toned down a little for winter. There are even one or two metallic shades to brighten playful fashions.

Starting with a look back at history, “Nobility Code” is the first group and within it “Strictly Class” are the colours that give the past a modern look of class and quality. It’s not necessarily old world, an era of the grand house; dashing modern fashions need these colours too if they are to be really striking. The colours? Here is everything from rubber through sable, the colours of red wine and grapes, classic pale and dark blues and pineneedle green.

Playfulness, evening glamour, and cool modern fashion, call the group “Experimental Existentialism” to give an air of excitement, Stahl has a range of metallic colours to suite the occasion. “Metallic Rhapsody” is a world of its own. Metallics glint under the lights of an autumn or winter evening, always catching the eye. Here are the metallic effects played out on silver, gold, copper browns, gunmetals and the almost black colours of the night, leading from antique shimmer to theatrical flashes of light that unhesitatingly brighten up the shades.

“Asian Fascination” immediately calls to mind the colours and magic of the Far East. Think of the peoples of Asia, the way they dress, the way they move and the way they perform and dance. The effects are hypnotic as ancient and modern cross and recross in both landscape and townscape. This is reflected in the “Hypnotic Shadow Play” group. Here pale khaki, pale dusky pinks and frosty greys interplay with dark colours, ebony, puce, jet black and red earth.

These days, no colour palette seems complete without references to history, without harking back to the natural dyes of medieval times and earlier. Grand living was one aspect but inthis sector of Stahl’s colour grouping, “Smash of Styles” uses “History Brights” to create a reminders of days of early exploration, travel and settlement.

Sailing ships opened up the New World and intrepid traders forged the silk routes between Europe and the Far East. Earthy colours cross the spectrum of cinnamon through browns, wines and reds into deep mauves and dark navy blues. They were perfect for the fashions of the time, and now they are perfect for creating new fashions that mirror the old. The taste of adventure and the wilderness inspire the search for ancient treasure, the search for the “Forever Natural”. Inevitably thoughts turn to warm neutral shades, the “Treasured Neutrals” that remind us of the countryside in autumn and winter as the green grass tones down to dusky green and dusky orange, the ploughed fields look like dull gold, chestnut and the dark brown of forest night. In the cool colours, grey and light brown are a reminder of stone walls and buildings out on the moors while winter white tones with these shades while perhaps reminding us the spring will not be far away. Finally Stahl gives “Future-Retro Action” a truly exciting look into the future. With Autumn and Winter on the scene, colours are aptly named “Freeze Up”. There’s snow white, of course, and then a range of cold colours such as dapple grey, fieldspar green, and silver lake blue through to jet black. Here the metallic shade is white pearl-metallic, it’s slightly cream hue making snow white seem even whiter. The range of colours in this forecast is so varied that there has to be something for everyone. Will the cheerful colours help us to put the present economic problems behind us and give us something for the high street to call us back into the shops? Hopefully “Yes” and hopefully these are the colours to attract the customers.

Stahl Holdings bv