When we were identifying product for our Valentine’s Day sale, we were intrigued by the prominence of the color red in our designs and in our customers’ purchasing patterns.
This made us curious, why red? The historians amongst us will tell you red is the oldest color. Many fashionistas will tell you that red never goes “out of fashion.” It is a strong, primary color associated with passion, strength, sensuality, bravery, love, energy, and even obsession. Red attracts attention. Sandy wore a red tailored suit to her first moot court argument in law school in 1978 and every judge complimented her for not sticking to the grey/navy suit uniform worn by all the other females (and males) participating. (BTW, she won the moot court competition, which was the first time a first year student had done so at the Columbus School of Law … Sandy is convinced it was the red suit.)
We and many of our customers particularly like red in combination with red or black. Bold statements.
Last year, Sandy started dying the underlying fabrics and the accent fibers herself. Getting the desired shade of red is such a challenge! We use acid dyes because they are so stable and relatively easy to work with. Cherry red, fire engine red, cayenne red and all of the various combinations are awaiting in the fabric design center.
We have some nice reds in our spring collection of fabrics. We are particularly excited about this India cotton brought to us by Common Thread, our wonderful fabric store in Taos NM. That pictured fabric is going to be used in a couple of designs and we will have extra fabric to sell (at least for a while). The red is subtle, but present.
The red is a little more dramatic here in our (unnamed) cut out fabric. Any suggestions? 
Can you see the fling of red in this fabric (also a new design)?
We are thinking of adopting American fashion designer Bill Blass‘ saying “When in doubt, wear red” as our Whispirit motto.
See you next week…….. Lee
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