Tahki Stacy Charles loves color. We strive to design garments and accessories that not only feel unique, but are also easily customizable. Color provides one of the easiest methods of personalizing a knitted piece. The desire for that level of customization is why Cotton Classic—an enduring all-weather favorite among knitters—comes in a staggering array of colors (143, to be exact). The subtlest shift in hue can be the difference between looking winsome and looking washed out, and we know that no two skin tones are exactly alike. Color also provides a playground for your knitting. There are so many ways to manipulate, coordinate, and contrast colors. Playing with color never goes out of style.
The spring 2017 runways exploded with rich, vibrant colors painted in striking, unique patterns. It was truly a fount of inspiration for us this season, and our designs owe much to top, high fashion designers and their dazzling displays. Color blocking, striping, geometric shapes, and all the ways in which to distort and stretch color manipulations into something new quickly made their way into Tahki Yarns Boardwalk Collection.
The Avalon Tee (above) is knit in Tahki Yarns Tandem, a matte-sheen cotton blend with its own wonderful maelstrom of colors much like an impressionistic painting. This season showed a new appreciation for stripes and how they could be placed within a garment to frame the body. A striped lace design includes a secondary Tandem color in Avalon, accenting the waistline. Styled for a day at the beach above, you can also see Avalon styled for a casual night out on the town in our latest Knit➔Style➔Wear video.
The Atlantic City Shawl in Tahki Yarns Catalina (above) embraced the trend of mixing stripe alignments. Balmain (above, right) really explored stripes this season, shooting them off in all directions—diagonally, horizontally, and vertically—and primarily together in the same garment. Horizontal stripes accentuated waistlines while vertical stripes elongated torsos and legs. Balmain’s stripes provided dynamic examples of how innovative striping. By aligning multidirectional stripes within one garment, the old adage advising against vertical stripes goes out the window.
Another technique to render stripes more universally flattering involved varying the widths of vertical stripes. We played with it in the Belmar Tee in Tahki Yarns Baja (above), which features both textured and color stripes in different widths. The widest stripe lies under the bust, interrupted by another stripe right at the natural waistline, drawing the eye in. A wide stripe at the neckline continues across the shoulder, accentuating the décolletage.
Color blocking was especially interesting this season. In season’s past, it has remained relatively conventional: tops blocked over bottoms, or tops blocked with two colors. Spring 2017 took the trend a little further, and we relished the opportunity to use knitting techniques to produce similar looks. The Ocean Grove Top in Tahki Yarns Cotton Classic features color blocked geometric shapes. Rather than just produce straight squares, these blocks offset one another at varying angles that flatter the figure. It’s deceptively easy (achieved with simple intarsia) and offers knitters the opportunities to play with Cotton Classic’s enormous color range.
Finally, perhaps the most fun color manipulation we saw on the runways this season inspired the Lavallette Tee in Tahki Yarns Skinny Jeans. Trina Turk (middle) and Emilio Pucci (right) sent scalloped, wavy stripes down the runway and we fell in love. It’s fluid and flirty—a feminized stripe favorably following the lines of the female body. In Lavallette, all the colors of Skinny Jeans are showcased in the décolletage, with the darker color lining the edges and finishing the waist, alluding to a slimmer waistline.
Check out our Color Forms Pinterest board to explore all of our favorite colorful runway looks from this season!
