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.