Tuesday, September 13, 2011

Bead Colors That Work with Pantone’s 2011 Fall / Winter Fashion Color: Bamboo

It’s one thing to know the current seasons fashion colors as forecast by Pantone, but it’s another to determine which bead colors  actually work back to those colors – the great thing about bead colors is that they seem to always be in fashion, if not this season certainly the next.

Bamboo Bead Color Collage

Those that know, realize that bead color choices and selection is quite exhaustive so it’s really kind of nice to have a trend color chart to reference so we’re not searching endlessly to match current fashion colors.

Bamboo is the first color listed on the chart. Mustard and Mustard Yellow immediately come to mind so this is an easy one for trying to figure out which bead color works back to Bamboo.  The beads and bead mixes I selected for the collage starts with the solid color in Miyuki Japanese Tila beads Mustard.  The bead mixes can be searched on two names Honey Butter aka Marigold.

I always like to know what’s inspiring to a designer in fashion, but especially in bead art jewelry designing as it often tells an interesting story.

Designers Chris Benz, Lela Rose and Kenneth Cole created the following pieces for Pantone and talked about not only what inspired them but the signature and prominent colors that they worked with while designing for Fall / Winter 2011 Fashions; so let’s start with the color Bamboo.

01_sk_Chris_benz11_sk_LelaRose16_sk_Kenneth_Cole

Chris Benz fondly reflects on his travels to Savannah Georgia in 2010 inspired his use of the color Bamboo and speaks of the prominent colors he uses as swampy colors in the moonlight: Licorice, Pirate Black, Mood Indigo and Cypress; splashed with Rust, Freesia, Hot Coral, Super Pink, Algiers Blue and Antique Moss. Chris’ signature color is Sponge which he describes as a Green-Beige.

Lela Rose was inspired by the obscured imagery and hazy aura of the artists’ Gerhard Richters’ paintings while visiting The Chicago Art Institute; so this along with her signature color Sea Green, she’s selected these prominent colors: Bronze, Tanger and Burnt Clay.

Kenneth Cole was also inspired during his travels to Ireland while sitting in front of a warm fire in an old Irish castle. With Saffron Yellow being his signature color which he likes to layer with other spicy colors: Terracotta, Red Apple and Fire Orange.

What an amazing array of color which will certainly inspire the creation of stunning bead art jewelry designs!

Mustard Yellow is clearly an obvious choice for the color Bamboo, but there are some more bead color options which could offer similar color ranges but because these colors are transparent rather than opaque like the Tila beads pictured above they take on less o the mustard yellow color: Transparent MAB Light Topaz, Transparent Light Topaz, Transparent Amber.

Metallic Matte Gold is another good choice.

Remember that the bead colors mentioned are consistent across bead types which includes seed beads, fire polished beads, Czech Glass Druk / Pressed beads, Swarovski Crystal NOTE not all bead types carry the same range of colors.