What's a Fashion Colorist?

The fashion industry is very unique and dynamic. It's a wonderful industry to be a part of! Not everyone is a design director or an assistant designer. There are other major roles that assist in the process of development through production.

A fashion colorist is a person whose role is to approve lab dips and bulk fabric according to the color standards that the design team choses to use for each style. For example, the design team designs a scoop neck tee offered in six colorways which includes one print (tangerine, sun, turquoise, sand, grass green, rose print). The color standards are physically mailed to the production manufacturer. The color standards can be yarn swatches or Pantone color swatches. In the case of a print like our rose print example, the CAD (color aided design) team will produce artwork that the design team chooses to use. This artwork can be emailed or physically mailed to the production manufacturer.

The production manufacturer will send lab dip swatches to be approved before they proceed to make sales samples and proceed into bulk production. The colorist reviews the lab dips which should be in the desired fabric chosen by the design team. The lab dips will be received on a card with fabric quality details and color names of each lab dip. The lab dips are approximately 1" x 1" in size. The colorist reviews the lab dips against the design team's color standards in a color cabinet or what's popularly known as a light box.


Light box photo courtsey of Gester Instruments

The light box has different light settings so that the colors can be a sure match. Depending on the type of light box that's used, the color settings can range from incandescent, outdoor, department store and ultra violet. The fashion colorist approves or rejects lab dips sent from the production manufacturer by emailing comments to the manufacturer. For example, color comments can be as follows:

-Grass Green: Go 20% less blue. Send a 2nd submit for review
-Sun: Approved. Proceed with sales samples in this color

The colorist has a sharp eye and is great at organizing lab dip submits to bring into design status update meetings with the internal development team. The colorist also has a good filing system to refer to lab dip comments for future references. This is a very important position as it's the colorists enthusiasm and commitment to perfection that's needed to be in charge of this process.

If this sounds like a position that you're interested in, try working as an intern to get a feel of this position.

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