Coronavirus disrupted the rhythms of fashion weeks, but also of fashion fairs: Pitti Filati, for example, moved onto the digisphere and yarns producers started presenting their new collections for the Spring/Summer 22 season online. The tactile pleasure that visiting a yarn fair in person may give you is lost and that’s obviously a shame, but the good thing is that some companies have tried to develop special digital sections on their sites to make sure their customers can learn more about the various yarns and their new palettes.
Todd & Duncan for example uploaded on the company’s site its digital shade cards that allow to discover more about the new fibers and colour ranges and added brief "Colour Tasting Notes", fragrant descriptions that attempt comparisons between yarns, flowers, food and artworks to help their clients visualising and imagining the intensity of the various shades and the consistency of the fibers.
Todd & Duncan's S/S 2022 collection is characterised by an optimistic title - "Abracadabra!" - an exclamation set to conjure up positive vibes and creative ideas for a season that is still so distant from us but that, we all hope, may bring us more joy and a return to normality after the disruptions and pain caused by Coronavirus.
The Cashmere line features sixteen new versatile shades that go from an intense starflower lilac-blue to a bright pink.
The Eri Silk and Calathea Naturals blend instead silk and linen, symbolising the lightness of summer through these fibers and with this series of undyed yarns.
The Eri Silk Naturals, taking the name from the "red eri" silk produced by silkworms fed on Ficus Citrifolia leaf, are characterised by a fine shantung effect; the Calathea Naturals line features instead yarns made with a blend of linen and undyed cashmere, with its linen yarn grown from heritage seed, and has zero chemical processes applied throughout production.
Todd & Duncan has been working on sustainability (and on biodegradable cashmere yarns) for a few years now and for the S/S 22 season the company is launching the Goose Cashmere line.
The name comes from Todd & Duncan's location on Loch Leven, where the renowned nature reserve is home to tens of thousands of migratory pink footed geese and many other bird species. This line is made with a repurposed 100% cashmere twisted yarn, using second line cashmere colours re-imagined in a mid-gauge weight yarn produced in a full range of colourful marls in contrasting shades.
The inspirations behind this collection are particularly intriguing as they go from art and architecture to nature: Samuel Zeller's book "Botanical" was one of the starting points together with the glasshouses at Edinburgh Royal Botanic. These architectural structures with flowers and leaves pressed against the glass to create textural shapes, forms, patterns and colours, lend a sense of quietness and tranquillity, of regained serenity and optimism for the future.
Charles Rennie Mackintosh's studies of wild plants and flowers also provided ideas for delicate yarns in energetic shades: the muted green "Willow" shade was inspired by Mackintosh's Willow Tearooms, while a pretty fresh pink was borrowed from a pencil and watercolour drawing of the Sea Pink flower (Armeria maritima) by Mackintosh. The drawing was made in 1901 when Mackintosh was visiting Holy Island, on the north east coast of England.
Last but not least, Ben McLaughlin's collages also provided some key inspirations: the bold relief works made through layering and placing cut-out shapes of reused card and paper were indeed an endless resource of ideas for Todd & Duncan's colours and yarns.
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