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jcrew:

we checked in with our in-house color librarian, Cherie, to get the scoop on our one-of-a-kind palettes, from our design team’s eclectic mood boards to our painstaking dye process to those clever color names. (Neon sea mist, anyone?)

Once the design team finalizes a palette for the season, Cherie works with our small-scale dyer in Boston, who creates each color on a fabric swatch for us. It’s important for us to see how the colors dye so we can pair shades with the fabrics we think will take the dye best.

Our color library is organized by year and season, so anyone can pop in to reference or borrow a color.

We name more than 100 colors in a season, so Cherie is constantly jotting down words in a notebook that she takes everywhere. She finds inspiration while reading (Dickens is always excellent for greys) and tries to pick names that go with the theme of the palette for that season. For example, if a board has tropical beach images, she’ll veer toward names like “caribbean pink” or “sandstone.”

Hundreds of spools of colorful yarn fill the shelves of the library—each is a color we’ve used over the seasons.

Photography by Bryan Derballa.

Is that my beloved 2001 Grass Green in the bottom photo, on the far left, surrounded by cobalt, cerulean, and cornflower? Probably not, but I can hope. :)

Also I want all of these photographs as high-resolution prints in the largest size I can fit on my walls.