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Love Color? Be a Colorist!
By admins | January 7, 2010
There are many professions in the fashion industry that seem to get all the attention, i.e. fashion designers, fashion photographers, and fashion models to name a few. Then there are many lesser known positions in the fashion industry, merchandiser, technical designer, or colorist. Personally we have never used a colorist, as designers we have often mixed our own colors and approved our own lab dips. However, the benefit of a colorist would have been a much appreciated luxury for any of us. To have an employee whose sole focus is on developing the best, most current, color palette for your line and seeing it through from concept to production, would be an enormous asset.
Well recently, we stumbled across a fabulous interview with a colorist that gives all the inside scoop on the profession. Our friends over at PinkyShears, who have an excellent fashion insider blog especially informative for fashion students, posted the following interview.
How Do You Perceive Color? Meet a Fashion Colorist by Brandon Graham
I thought you might be interested in what a Fashion Colorist does. As a designer I’m used to checking and approving color test/lab dips myself, but the interviewee, who would rather stay annonymous does this exclusively for her assigned designers. I asked her 15 distinct questions to help you understand this position. It seems like a position people “just fall into.” They don’t teach this specifically in school, but you may be assisted by one when you begin your new job… if your lucky.
1. What’s your background and current position?
Title: Colorist. Handles 3 men’s casual in-house private labels
Company: Major U.S. Department Store
Division: Production
Experience: 3 years
Education: BA in Textiles and Apparel
2. What is your main job responsibility?
Receive, check, and comment on color standards/lab-dips.
3. Could you explain what happens before you take over?
A designer will find a color that they like (maybe from another shirt) and will sent that to who they call Clericals within the production department. The Clerical will source that color from the in-house color library. If they don’t have the color they can get it customed dyed where they will send that swatch from the shirt to an overseas mill that has dying capabilities. The Clericals will do the ordering of the lab-dips which are essentially the result of 3-4 attempts to match the colors you wanted.
4. What resources does the color library have?
The library has access to a wide array of colors in addition to different suppliers that can dye the fabric.
5. When does the Colorist enter in the picture?
When the overseas dyers send back the lab dips that’s when the Colorist takes over. They look at it and compare it to the original standard/reference swatch.
To read the rest of the interview click here.
Here is more related scoop;
Topics: fashion industry, interview | 3 Comments » 
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January 8th, 2010 at 12:26 am
ooh love this! I always wanted to do this but never knew how. Some how it seems more zen and less stressful then design?
Great link too, thanks!
January 9th, 2010 at 1:16 pm
Great interview, Brandon looks so familiar, hmmm…
Anyway, colorist is one of the many obscure fashion jobs, like trend forecaster, that I dream about one day transitioning into.
Thanks for the info, well done, happy weekend!
January 12th, 2010 at 8:27 am
Wow – I learned so much from this interview! I never knew the schematics of a colorist. Thank you for giving us this insightful interview!